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California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Friday announced that her office, along with the offices of seven other attorneys general, has reached settlements totaling $571 million with three manufacturers that engaged in price fixing of flat screen LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) panels found in monitors, laptops and televisions.
The settlements announced Friday apply to Toshiba Corp.; LG Display Co., Ltd.; and AU Optronics Corporation (and several subsidiaries), which have collectively agreed to pay $543.5 million toward damages claims, plus $27.5 million in civil penalties.
This follows $538.5 million in settlements reached in December 2011 with seven leading LCD manufacturers, plus $14.7 million in civil penalties, bringing the total recovery to more than $1.1 billion, which will be divided among twenty-four states and the District of Columbia.
“The price-fixing by these ten companies broke the law and short-changed California consumers,” said Attorney General Harris. “This settlement brings justice to our consumers, protects companies that follow the law, and ends the pernicious practice of price-fixing by these manufacturers.”
In October 2010, the Attorney General's office filed a lawsuit against ten companies for engaging in price fixing of LCD panels from 1999 to 2006 that resulted in higher prices for California residents and businesses, as well as government agencies.
As part of the settlements, the ten companies that engaged in price fixing will provide a fund for injured consumers and businesses.
The settling companies have also resolved claims brought by Attorney General Harris for civil penalties under California’s Unfair Competition Law, as well as restitution for government agencies that purchased products containing the flat screen LCD panels.
Attorney General Harris is joined in these settlements by the attorneys general of Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, New York, West Virginia and Wisconsin, as well as a class action brought on behalf of private claimants in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
The three defendants who settled today join the seven who settled in December, which included Chimei Innolux Corp., Chi Mei Optoelectronics USA, Inc., Chi Mei Optoelectronics Japan Co., Ltd, HannStar Display Corporation, Hitachi, Ltd., Hitachi Displays, Ltd., Hitachi Electronic Devices, USA, Inc., Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., Samsung Semiconductor, Inc., Sharp Corporation, and Sharp Electronics Corporation.
The attorney general’s case was originally filed in San Francisco Superior Court.
In 2008, two companies – LG Display Co., Ltd. and LG Display America, Inc. – pleaded guilty to federal charges for price fixing TFT-LCD panels and paid $400 million in federal fines. Defendants AU Optronics Corporation and AU Optronics Corporation America, along with several employees, were convicted on federal charges of price fixing in March 2012 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
California consumers and government entities will receive a significant portion of the more than $1 billion settlements, with an exact percentage to be determined in coming months.
Following completion of the litigation, California consumers and businesses can file claims for monetary relief.
Information about how to file a claim will be available at the Attorney General's website or at www.lcdclass.com .
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U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman on Thursday announced 13 new cutting-edge research projects that will receive a total of $30 million to find new ways of harnessing America’s abundant natural gas supplies for cars and trucks and expand the use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel.
Two California companies, OtherLab in San Francisco and SRI International in Menlo Park, were selected for projects.
Through its Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), the Department’s new program, titled Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy - or “MOVE” – aims to engineer light-weight, affordable natural gas tanks for vehicles and develop natural gas compressors that can efficiently fuel a natural gas vehicle at home.
“These innovative projects will leverage the ingenuity of U.S. scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to develop breakthrough technologies to fuel cars with natural gas,” said Deputy Secretary Poneman. “These projects could transform America’s energy infrastructure and economy by utilizing domestic energy sources to power our vehicles, reducing our reliance on imported oil, and increasing American energy security.”
OtherLab in San Francisco, California, will receive $250,000 to develop a high-pressure natural gas tank for light-duty vehicles using small diameter tubes tightly wound into a tank shape.
Like human intestines, these small tubes will fit tightly into virtually any shape for efficient storage. Gas intestine storage tanks could be as light as today’s carbon fiber tanks at one fifth the cost.
SRI International in Menlo Park will $875,000 to develop low-pressure natural gas storage tanks for light-duty vehicles using porous materials that enable low pressure storage at high energy densities.
SRI’s unique approach using porous carbon materials will provide structural strength and high surface area for gas adsorption that will entirely eliminate the need for a costly external tank.
These projects build on President Obama’s call for a new era for American energy that benefits from the safe, responsible development of the near 100-year supply of U.S. natural gas resources, which has the potential to support more than 600,000 American jobs.
Shale gas production in the U.S. has more than tripled since 2008. Over the past five years, it has grown from 5 percent to more than 30 percent of total domestic natural gas production. The Department of Energy sponsored early research that helped lead to this development, funding research and development jointly with industry and universities that was essential to the development of American shale gas resources.
Today’s natural gas vehicle technologies require tanks that can withstand high pressures, are often cumbersome, and are either too large or too expensive to be suitable for smaller passenger vehicles. ARPA-E’s new projects are focused on removing these barriers, which will help encourage the widespread use of natural gas cars and trucks.
The projects will also focus on developing natural gas compressors that make it easier for consumers to re-fuel at home.
The investments announced today build on efforts underway through the Clean Cities program and National Clean Fleets Partnership to help large fleet operators in the country, such as large companies, cities, and states, identify opportunities to transition to natural gas vehicles.
Many commercial fleet operators nationwide have already begun to transition long-haul trucks and other commercial vehicles to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The advances achieved under this latest set of research and development awards will help expand the use of natural gas vehicles, so that consumers nationwide can benefit.
Deputy Secretary Poneman announced the newly selected projects, two of which are located in Texas, at a meeting of the National Petroleum Council (NPC) in Houston, Texas.
The NPC is a federal advisory committee to the Secretary of Energy that advises, informs, and makes recommendations on matters relating to natural gas and oil or to the natural gas and oil gas industries.
Selected projects are located in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.
President Obama launched ARPA-E in 2009 to seek out transformational, breakthrough technologies that are too risky for private-sector investment but have the potential to translate science into quantum leaps in energy technology, form the foundation for entirely new industries, and have large commercial impacts.
Demonstrating the success ARPA-E has already seen, the program announced last year that eleven of its projects secured more than $200 million in outside private capital investment after initial funding from its programs.
To date, ARPA-E has attracted over 5,000 applications from research teams, which has resulted in approximately 180 groundbreaking projects worth nearly $500 million.
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