Thursday, 28 August 2008

Four Infineon executives pled guilty for price fixing computer memory chips and will face a prison sentence of four to six months along with $250,000 in fines, reported the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday.

Heinrich Florian, Günter Hefner, Peter Schaefer, and T. Rudd Corwin were part of an "international conspiracy" to increase computer memory chip prices globally. They were part of Infineon’s sales division in the United States as well as in Germany.

Also, the aforementioned individuals will help the department reveal other executives of other major DRAM makers who may also be involved with price fixing in the DRAM industry.

According to the DoJ, the executives violated Sherman Antitrust Act by having meetings to discuss DRAM prices.

In September, Infineon admitted to charging consumers higher prices than needed and agreed to pay $160 million in fines. Micron, in November, also came forward and admitted to inflating its prices as well, however, their settlement hasn’t been settled thus far, but according to sources, they might avoid being fined.

Samsung and Hynix are also under investigation for global DRAM price inflations.


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