Three electronics manufacturers -- LG Display, Sharp and Chunghwa Picture Tubes -- have agreed to plead guilty and pay a combined US$585 million in criminal fines for conspiring to fix the prices of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

LG will pay $400 million of the fines, which is the second-highest fine ever imposed by the DOJ's Antitrust Division, the DOJ said.

The DOJ filed the price-fixing charges in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco Wednesday. The companies, in agreeing to settle the charges, also agreed to cooperate with the DOJ's ongoing antitrust investigation.

Thin-Film Transistor LCD panels are used in computer monitors and laptops, television sets, mobile phones, and other electronic devices. In 2006, the worldwide market for TFT-LCD panels was approximately $70 billion, the DOJ said.

Companies directly affected by the LCD price-fixing conspiracies are some of the largest computer, television and cellular telephone manufacturers in the world, including Apple, Dell and Motorola, the DOJ said in a press release.

"Today’s charges and criminal fines emphasize the commitment of the Department of Justice to crack down on international cartels," U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said in a statement.

Representatives of the three companies didn't immediately respond to requests for comments on the settlements.

LG Display, a South Korean corporation, and its subsidiary, LG Display America, agreed to plead guilty to participating in a conspiracy from September 2001 to June 2006 to fix the price of TFT-LCD panels sold worldwide.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.