Philips refutes EU LCD cartel charges The European Commission is investigating whether a cartel has been operating in the LCD panel industry. The Commission said today that it had sent a "statement of objections" to a number of companies in the market, "concerning their alleged participation in a cartel in violation of EC Treaty rules on restrictive business …
No they don't, they deny the charges. Politicians seem to have started this incorrect use of the word refute, probably because they thought it sounded stronger than deny or they thought it not in sufficiently widespread use for the electorate to know the difference. More likely both. It's bad enough that they never get challenged by the news media when they make such statements without the aforementioned organisations contributing to the promotion of such objectionable Newspeak.
</rant>
...I can think of one group the EU should be looking at before looking into Philips' supposed cartel.
A wholely monopolistic agreement between a certain fruity trendy computer manufacturer, and specific mobile phone network companies worldwide. A certain product split up between said network companies by territory making competition nearly non-existent.
Nudge Nudge...
Say no more...
The only reason other mob operators aren't crying bloody mary is because said fruity computer firm allows that company to sell said product in a different territory. Meanwhile the customer suffers at the hands of the crap service from said mobile operator and serious price fixing.
1. Philips had a share in LG
2. LG part of Cratel fined $585m for price-fixing conspiracy http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/11/12/lcd_price_fixing_guilty_pleas/
Yeah, right, now, how do I claim a refund on my lappy
Paris, she said the video was put on the internet without her permission
Main Entry: re·fute
Pronunciation: \ri-ˈfyüt\
Function: transitive verb
1 : to prove wrong by argument or evidence : show to be false or erroneous
2 : to deny the truth or accuracy of <refuted the allegations>
Dear Captain Hogwash,
I refute your rant. Please see, especially, definition 2 posted above (however, definition 1 also applies to my example). Thanks.
OK, I took the bait. Your definition appears to be from Wordnet and the first in the list if you use the Google define keyword. Try this from the University of Aberdeen
REFUTE To refute a proposition or theory is to *establish* or *prove* that it is false. Lately many people have taken to using ‘refute’ as a synonym for ‘deny’, but avoid this usage in philosophy. To deny that God exists is not, in philosophical usage, to refute (or disprove) the proposition that God exists.
Their emphasis on 'establish' and 'prove'.
> Actually, I got my definition from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/refute
El Reg is a UK publication (that's why it's a .co.uk site) so we expect El Reg's hacks to write in Left-Pondian English, and not adopt Right-Pondian American malapropisms like "refute" for "deny" and other similar rubbish that can be found in criminally illiterate "English" dictionaries like Merrian's Webster and in even less literate speeches by a former President.
We don't want to see el Reg supporting the Yanks and their co-nationals in their efforts to render our language not useful for communication!
" The EU seem to spend so much time searching for groups fixing the price on a product. Hello? Have you heard of OPEC?!"
Actually, I fail to see the link. EU is looking for price fixing done in the EU by companies subject to EU laws.
Is Aramco, the biggest (or second biggest?) oil producer and property of Saudi Arabia doing any business in the EU? Is it subject to EU laws? Last I checked, it was subject to Saudi Arabia law, and that's it, and it didn't sell anything in the EU, it was just selling oil to other companies.
Yes, it's price fixing, but no, it has nothing to do (unfortunately, might you say, but that's not the point) with competition policy inside the EU.
Your complaining about the EU policing flat screens instead of oil is like complaining that though it runs foul of competition policies to discriminate between buyers, the EU is doing nothing to force the US to sell all their latest weapon systems to every country that wants it.
In both cases, it's country sovereignty and that's it. Much as it hurts us (or not), I fail to see why and how EU laws would or should force Saudi Arabia to extract oil it does not want to extract on a given day.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
