New York Paralegal Blog

WASHINGTON – Samsung SDI Company Ltd. has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $32 million criminal fine for its role in a global conspiracy to fix prices, reduce output and allocate market shares of color display tubes (CDTs), a type of cathode ray tube used in computer monitors and other specialized applications, the Department of Justice announced today. According to a one-count felony charge filed today in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Republic of Korea-based Samsung SDI participated in a conspiracy from at least as early as January 1997, until at least as late as March 2006, to suppress and eliminate competition by fixing prices, reducing output and allocating market shares of CDTs to be sold in the United States and elsewhere. According to the plea agreement, which is subject to court approval, Samsung SDI has agreed to cooperate with the department’s ongoing cathode ray tube investigation.

Conroe, Texas-based Maverick Tube Corporation will pay $175,000 to settle a retaliation discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC’s lawsuit, filed in June 2007, (C.A. 4:07-cv-02033 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division), charged that in May 2005, Maverick Tube retaliated against Andra Williams by firing him after he reported to its president and chief operating officer the safety manager’s racially offensive comments. The company investigated Williams’s complaint and, as a result, discharged the manager. But, less than a month after he reported the comments, Williams was fired after he was falsely accused of saying he would call the company’s president to report his supervisor if he was not permitted to have a requested vacation day. Before conducting any investigation into the allegation made against Williams, the regional human resources manager stated in an e-mai...