No RED tape!

[Michael Brennan]

From an online Forum, can't vouch for its accuracy, its somewhat dated but not widely published...

Glad to leave behind this horrid background vibe that we have been screwed by cynical corporations for years.



Mike Brennan




"The European Commission has imposed a total of €74,790,000 fines on Sony, Fuji and Maxell for fixing prices for professional videotapes sold to
customers in Europe. The commission found there to be a violation of the EC
Treaty's ban on cartels and restrictive business practices. Competition
Commissioner Neelie Kroes said, "This decision sends two warnings to
companies engaging in cartel activities: first, the Commission can prosecute
cartels effectively even without prompts from immunity applicants, and
second, obstructing a Commission's antitrust investigation leads to severe
penalties." Adrian Pennington reports.

The Commission started an investigation on its own initiative with surprise
inspections, carried out at the premises of Sony's, Fuji's and Maxell's
European subsidiaries in May 2002. The cartel covers the two most popular
professional videotape formats at the time of the infringement: Betacam SP
and Digital Betacam, which in 2001 totaled annual sales of some €115 million
in the European Economic Area (EEA).

The EC found that Sony, Fuji and Maxell, with a combined share of more than
85% of the professional VT market, organised three successful rounds of
price increases and endeavoured to stabilise prices whenever an increase was
not possible. They also regularly monitored the implementation of the price
agreements.

Between 1999 and 2002, Sony, Fuji and Maxell managed to raise or otherwise
control prices through a series of regular meetings and other illicit
contacts. Sony's fine has been increased by 30% for obstructing the
Commission's investigation during on-site inspections at its premises.
Fuji's and Maxell's fines are reduced by 40% and 20% respectively because
they co-operated with the investigation under the Commission's 2002 Leniency Notice."

(c) CMP

[PaulClements]

Roll on the compact flash price fixing! :)

Paul

[Jeff Coatney]

Thank you for the info. There's more of this type of thing going on than people realize. "Wall Street" turns a blind eye to this sort of practice because although everyone says they want free trade, nobody wants fair trade and this type of activity protects long-established profit centers.

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

They are all doing what is best for their businesses and worst for the consumer. The F900, for instance, is ridiculously overpriced for what it is. It's barely any better than the HVX200 and sells for 20 times as much. Now rental companies are having to figure out what to do with a camera that's like 6 times worse than the RED except also more expensive. The point never seems to be, "Let's release a product and make a reasonable profit on it," but rather "let's charge absolutely whatever the market will bear." That seems like a great idea, when your main competitors are thinking the same thing, but eventually an outsider (in this case RED) comes in and really shakes up the waters and it amounts to being caught with your pants down around your ankles.

[Finner]

"let's charge absolutely whatever the market will bear."

I heard grips will bear a $100 a day.

That seems like a great idea, when your main competitors are thinking the same thing, but eventually an outsider (in this case RED) comes in and really shakes up the waters and it amounts to being caught with your pants down around your ankles.

Really makes me wonder where your pants are?

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Uhh ok? That was unrelated to, well, anything, but thanks for your as usual fairly useless input.

[Finner]

Thanks Johnathan

Just trying to soak up as much knowledge as I can from a vetern pro like yourself.

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

You should, you might learn a thing or two. You can certainly feel as you wish, Finner, but you'll be hearing a lot about me over the next couple of decades.

[Anthony Gratl]

Uhh ok? That was unrelated to, well, anything, but thanks for your as usual fairly useless input.

I think his point Jonathan, was that you're being contradictory. On the one hand you hate the fact that companies overcharge people for their product as much as possible, as we all do, since it's a form of exploitation, yet on the other hand, you don't feel it necessary to pay people a decent living wage because of basic supply and demand economics, thereby exploiting them.

[Dalibor Fencl]

"The European Commission has imposed a total of €74,790,000 fines on Sony, Fuji and Maxell ...........

Between 1999 and 2002, Sony, Fuji and Maxell managed to raise or otherwise
control prices through a series of regular meetings and other illicit
contacts .............

(c) CMP

Never mind, the revolution just began!