Antitrust Principle

 

“Customer Satisfaction”, “Excellence in Execution”, “Innovation”, and “Integrity” are the guiding principles, values, commitments, and beliefs of LITE-ON, which are deployed throughout the company's business operations and management philosophy. We stipulated the Antitrust or fair trade provisions in the Corporate-wide CSER code of conduct and defined its detailed realization requirements in place in order to avoid any incompliance of Anti-trust regulations.
The guiding principles, values, commitments, to the following matters:

  • Guidelines for dealing with Competitors.
  • Guidelines for dealing with Customers and Suppliers.
  • Special considerations concerning trade and standard-setting associations.
  • Illegal monopolization and attempts to monopolize.



We understood that the cost that flows from violating the antitrust and competition laws can be enormous. They are described in more detail below, and they include criminal prosecution, fines, triple damages and attorneys' fees, injunction, and debarment from business relations with government entities. The violated business includes but is not limited to the following matters:

  • Monopoly
  • Price fixing
  • Resale price maintenance
  • Competition with improper ways



Additionally, we established a comprehensive standard “The Ethical Code of Conduct for Employees” that consistently applies to all employees. LITE-ON also emphasizes the need to interpret the value of these ethical standards so that employees can understand how they're related to their daily activities and avoid violating laws or the company's policy. Through professional and regular training courses including “RBA (Electronics Industry Code of Conduct) courses,” “Employee Ethics and Anti-Corruption courses” and “Material Inside Information" and “Anti-trust courses” which are designed more practical to advocate company policy and process so that all my colleagues can understand and be fully aligned.

  • Statement on the involvement of Anti-trust clauses of LITE-ON IT Corporation prior to the merger of LITE-ON Technology Corporation
Statement on the involvement of Anti-trust clauses of LITE-ON IT Corporation prior to the merger of LITE-ON Technology Corporation

Statement on the involvement of Anti-trust clauses of LITE-ON IT Corporation prior to the merger of LITE-ON Technology Corporation

 

The Defendants of the antitrust litigations mentioned below were LITE-ON IT Corporation and its subsidiaries, Philips & LITE-ON Digital Solutions Corporation, Philips & LITE-ON Digital Solutions USA, Inc. However, LITEON IT Corporation was merged with LITE-ON Technology Corporation on June 30, 2014, and LITE-ON Technology Corporation assumes all of the ongoing litigations accordingly. LITE-ON Technology Corporation hereby provides the statements of the litigation as below:

 

  1. In the second quarter of 2013, Dell Inc. and Dell Products L.P. filed an anti-trust lawsuit against LITE-ON and other ODD suppliers in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, LITEON has settled this lawsuit with Dell Inc. and Dell Products L.P. in April 2017.

  2. In the fourth quarter of 2013, Ingram Micro Inc. and Synnex Corporation also filed anti-trust lawsuits against LITEON and other ODD suppliers in the US District Court for the Central District of California, LITE-ON settled this lawsuit with Ingram Micro Inc. and Synnex Corporation in August 2017.

  3. Acer Inc., Acer America Corporation, Gateway, Inc. and Gateway U.S. Retail, Inc. in the fourth quarter of 2013, Alfred H. Siegel, as Bankruptcy Trustee for the Circuit City Stores in the third quarter of 2015, and Peter Kravitz, as Bankruptcy Trustee for the RadioShack Corporation in the fourth quarter of 2015, filed separate anti-trust lawsuits against LITEON and other ODD suppliers in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

  4. Carlos Fogelman; The Fanshawe College of Applied Arts and Technology; Neil Godfrey; Donald Woligroski and Cindy Retallick respectively filed anti-trust class actions against LITEON, PLDS and other ODD suppliers at different Canadian Superior Courts of Justice in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan during the period between the second quarter of 2010 and the second quarter of 2014. These cases are still ongoing.

  5. LITEON has retained outside counsel to handle all these cases and reserved a proper amount of funds based on the progress of each case. These anti-trust cases may not cause any serious impact on the regular operation of LITEON.

  6. Besides the Anti-Trust Compliance Policy mandated by the LITEON legal department, LITEON also provides regular internal training courses to educate the employees on anti-trust compliance, including introductory training for newly hired employees and periodical training for the employees subject to anti-trust compliance. By doing so, LITEON's employees are familiarized with antitrust regulations and cautious about any potential violation of antitrust laws. LITEON's audit department also regularly and systematically audits related practices. With all these measures, LITEON is determined to comply with anti-trust regulations.