Samsung Fined $300 Million for Price Fixing
The Department of Justice said today that it had reached a $300 million antitrust settlement with Samsung Electronics, the South Korean technology conglomerate, and that the company agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to fix prices on memory chips sold to the world’s biggest computer makers.
It was the second largest fine in United States antitrust history and the third time a memory chip maker has agreed to settle antitrust charges in less than 12 months. Hynix Semiconductor, also from South Korea, agreed to pay $185 million in May and Infineon Technologies, the German chip company, reached a $160 million deal in November 2004. (The largest antitrust fine ever was a $500 million penalty levied against Hoffmann-La Roche in 1999 for fixing vitamin prices.)
The Justice Department said Samsung colluded with competitors to artificially inflate the price of dynamic random access memory chips, or DRAM, sold to computer makers like Dell, Apple Computer, I.B.M. and Compaq from 1999 to 2002. The chips are essential building blocks in all kinds of electronic products from personal computers to digital cameras and accounted for $7.4 billion in United States sales in 2004.
Source: NYTimes.
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