The three Samsung executives have each agreed to serve up to eight months in jail each and pay a fine of $250,0000.

The executives—Sun Woo Lee, senior manager of DRAM sales; Yeongho Kang, associate director of DRAM marketing for Samsung’s U.S. subsidiary; and Young Woo Lee, sales director for Samsung’s German subsidiary—also agreed to cooperate in the DoJ's ongoing investigation of the DRAM industry. The executives have agreed not to contest U.S. jurisdiction, meaning extradition will not be required, DOJ said.

The U.S. has for two years been investigating alleged price fixing among DRAM manufacturers between 1999 and 2003. Four companies and 12 individuals have so far been charged, resulting in fines totaling more than $731 million. Samsung pled guilty to federal price-fixing charges, agreeing to pay a $300 million fine, last October.

Three other companies have also pled guilty to price-fixing charges and agreed to pay large fines. South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc. pleaded guilty in April 2005 and agreed to a $185 million fine.

Germany's Infineon Technologies AG agreed in September 2004 to pay a $160 million fine. Four Infineon executives served jail terms ranging from four to six months and each paid a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty to involvement in the price-fixing conspiracy.

In January, Japanese manufacturer Elpida Memory Inc. agreed to plead guilty and pay an $84 million fine.

Earlier this month, four Hynix executives agreed to serve jail terms of five to eight months and pay $250,000 each in connection with the probe.

A Micron Technology Inc. executive pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with the probe in December 2003. That executive resigned, and Micron has said it is cooperating with the investigation.

The three Samsung executives entered guilty pleas to conspiring with unnamed employees from other memory makers to fix the prices of DRAM at various times from April 1, 1999 to June 15, 2002. According to the Justice Department, the conspiracy directly affected sales to U.S. computer makers Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Compaq Computer Corp., IBM Corp., Apple Computer Inc. and Gateway Inc.

"These are the first executives from Samsung to plead guilty to fixing prices in what is still an active investigation into antitrust violations in the DRAM industry," Thomas Barnett, assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ's antitrust division, said in a statement. “We will continue our efforts to bring to justice other domestic and foreign-based executives who were involved with fixing DRAM prices."

According to the department, the $731 million in fines is the second largest amount of ever collected by the department from a single price-fixing conspiracy. In 1999, the DOJ levied fines of $775 million against two companies in connection with a vitamin industry price-fixing investigation.

By: DocMemory
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