Originally published December 27 2005
Samsung pleads guilty to price fixing and pays $300 million
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Samsung has agreed to pay $300 million in fines for conspiring to fix memory chip prices. The price fix was detrimental to consumers of products from makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard.
Samsung Electronics and its US subsidiary Samsung Semiconductor have pleaded guilty to price fixing and has agreed to pay a US$300 million penalty.
The fine is the second largest criminal anti-trust fine in US history and the largest criminal fine since 1999, according to the DOJ.
"There has been no change in the terms of the plea agreement or in the companies' status since the announcement of the plea last October.
The plea agreement represents the final resolution of the federal DRAM investigation for Samsung," said Chris Goodhart, director of marketing communications at Samsung Semiconductor.
The companies had been under investigation by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the latest in a series of investigations into DRAM price-fixing.
Samsung's agreement to pay the fine brings to $646 million the total amount levied so far in an investigation that includes companies and corporate executives in several countries.
In May, Hynix Semiconductor pleaded guilty and was sentenced to pay a $185 million fine, while in October 2004, German manufacturer Infineon Technolgies also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to pay a $160 million fine.
Several executives from major DRAM companies, including Micron Technology and Infineon, have served served prison sentences or paid fines over the case.
The US government claims the DRAM companies conspired to fix memory chip prices to the detriment of customers including computer and printer makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard.
The investigation began in 2002, a year after the worst technology industry downturn so far this decade.
The computer companies and the U.S. government maintain that strong DRAM prices hurt business, despite the fact most DRAM makers posted heavy losses during the year in question, 2001, and DRAM prices remained below or near the cost of production for most of the year.
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