Nine Japanese passive component factories were fined 36 billion won by Korea! Suspected collusion in monopolizing capacitor prices

Sept. 18, according to Korean media reports, Korean company regulators said Sunday that they had decided to issue fines totalling 36 billion won (219 million yuan) for nine Japanese companies suspected of colluding to maintain or raise the price of capacitors used in smartphones and many other electronic devices. According to the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), Tokin Corp. and eight other Japanese companies conspired to sell capacitor prices in Korea and other countries between July 2000 and January 2014. The Committee said the companies agreed to avoid excessive price reductions and share relevant information in order to jointly respond to price reductions.

South Korean regulators said these monopolies affected the price of capacitors sold to Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and other Korean local electronics companies valued at 737 billion won (about 4.49 billion yuan). According to FTC, Japanese manufacturers account for 40-70% of the local market in South Korea. Antitrust regulators have also indicated that they have been conducting investigations with the authorities of Japan, the European Union, Taiwan and Singapore since June 2014.
In fact, this is the first time that non-passive component factories have been punished by anti-monopoly sanctions. In March, Bloomberg reported that he and seven other Japanese capacitor manufacturers were fined a total of 253.9 million euros (about 2 billion yuan) by the European Union for 14 years of monopoly and joint pricing. The EU pointed out that from 1998 to 2012, these enterprises monopolized the capacitor market jointly. Among them, Jiamei was fined 98 million euros (about 780 million yuan) the heaviest, followed by Nijikang's 73 million euros (about 580 million yuan).
In the past two years, the price of passive electronic components has risen because of the imbalance between supply and demand, such as MLCC capacitors. Because of the adjustment of production capacity of leading enterprises, Murata, Japan, the price of MLCC capacitors has risen sharply. In other places, such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, the price of MLCC capacitors has also risen sharply. According to the current situation, the production capacity of passive electronic components is very tight at the end of this year and even next year, and it is impossible to reduce It is uncertain whether the price increase of electronic components is caused by human factors, but the price increase of electronic components in the last round has been investigated. In addition, Korean fines are not Tokin's first anti-monopoly fines. As early as 2015, they were fined $13.2 million by the U.S. Department of Justice for manipulating capacitor prices. Korean anti-monopoly fines are only the follow-up of American fines.