According to the U.S. Department of Justice, several executives from LG and Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) have agreed to serve prison time and pay fines in relation to a global LCD price fixing scandal.

In a statement released last week, the DOJ announced that four high level executives from the Korea and Taiwan based electronics companies will serve time in American prisons for "participating in a global conspiracy to fix prices in the sale of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) panels."

C.S. Chung, a Korean citizen and former VP of Monitor Sales for LG, will spend seven months in a U.S. prison and pay a $25,000 fine. The remaining conspirators are all former CPT employees U.S. citizen and former Chairman and CEO Chieng-Hon Lin, VP of LCD Sales Chih-Chun Liu, and Salesman/former VP of LCD Sales Hsueh-Lung Lee, all of whom are Taiwanese citizens, will serve prison sentences ranging from six months to nine months and pay fines ranging from $25,000 to $50,000.

According to the DOJ, the four former executives were charged under the Sherman Act, which carries "a maximum fine of $1 million and up to 10 years in prison." Fines stemming from convictions under the Sherman Act are tied to financial gains made by the convicted or monetary losses of the victims.

"These are the first individuals to plead guilty to a charge of fixing prices in this active investigation into antitrust violations in the TFT-LCD industry," said Scott D. Hammond, the Antitrust Division’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Enforcement. "We will continue in our efforts to bring to justice other domestic and foreign-based executives who were involved with fixing TFT-LCD prices."

While these four men represent the first convictions regarding LCD price fixing,they do not represent the first criminal punishment. Last month, both Sharp and LG plead guilty to conspiracy in regards to LCD price fixing, and both companies were forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in criminal fines. Earlier this month, Chunghwa also plead guilty to conspiracy and was handed a $65 million fine.

Read the official DOJ press release here.