What foul magic hath befallen Sony? The once invincible gadget overlord is now synonymous with exploding batteries, has fumbled the video game market and digital music and can't catch a break with Blu-ray.
And now the European Commission jumps into the Wayback Machine to deal with alleged videotape price-fixing, deciding Sony and two other Japanese videocassette makers owe the equivalent of $110 million for screwing consumers between 1999 and 2002. The body found that Sony, Fujifilm and Maxell maintained a cartel to artificially maintain high prices for Betacam tapes, the main format used by TV crews and other professionals.
EU fines Sony, others for videotape price fixes [Reuters]
