US says Samsung to plead guilty http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=OBR&Date= 20051013&ID=5189228
Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has agreed to plead guilty to charges of price-fixing and pay a $300 million fine as part of a federal investigation into the computer memory chip industry, U.S. antitrust authorities said on Thursday. The Justice Department said the $300 million was the second-largest criminal antitrust fine in U.S. history. Samsung and its U.S. subsidiary were accused by the U.S. Justice Department of conspiring with other chip makers, between April 1999 and June 2002, to fix the prices of memory chips sold to some computer and server manufacturers. Under the plea agreement, which must still be approved by U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Samsung has agreed to cooperate in the ongoing investigations, the government said. Samsung would become the third chip maker to plead guilty in the wide-ranging probe of the prices of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips. The Justice Department has blamed the price-fixing conspiracy for driving up the price of chips used in products ranging from personal computers and servers to cell phones, cameras and game consoles. The government's ongoing investigation has already netted guilty pleas and hefty fines from Germany's Infineon Technologies AG and another South Korean manufacturer, Hynix Semiconductor Inc. . U.S. rival Micron Technology Inc. has cooperated with the probe. The Justice Department said fines totaling more than $646 million have resulted from the department's investigation. Copyright 2005 Reuters You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
