Friday, October 20, 2006
Three top executives from several DRAM manufacturers were indicted for their alleged participation in a price-fixing conspiracy in 2001 and 2002, the U.S. Justice Department said.
The indictments were handed down against two South Korean nationals from Samsung Electronics Ltd. and one American national from Hynix Semiconductor Inc.'s U.S. subsidiary, the Justice Department said.
The indictments charge that Gary Swanson, senior vice president of memory sales and marketing for Hynix America, and Il Ung Kim and Young Bae Rha, high-ranking executives from Samsung's memory division, participated in a conspiracy to fix the price of DRAM memory chips from April 1, 2001 to June 15, 2002.
A total of 16 individuals have now been charged with criminal wrong doing in connection with the DRAM price-fixing conspiracy. The first 13 individuals have already pleaded guilty and been sentenced to jail terms and fines.
The Justice Department, which has been conducting a probe of DRAM price fixing in the late 1990s and early part of this decade, has doled more than $731 million in fines, the second highest total ever levied in a specific antitrust investigation. In 1999, the department levied fines of $775 million against two companies in connection with a vitamin industry price-fixing investigation.
Kim, Rha, and Swanson are each charged with participating in the conspiracy to suppress competition in violation of the Sherman Act, according to the Justice Department. The maximum penalty for each conviction is three years imprisonment and a fine of $350,000, the department said.
The maximum fines may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims if either of those amounts is greater than the Sherman Act maximum fines, according to the Justice Department.
By: DocMemory
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