Nine memory chip makers, including world leader Samsung Electronics, fined a total of €331 million by European Union regulators today for illegally fixing prices.
The EU antitrust watchdog levied its biggest penalty of €145.73 million against Samsung, while Infineon was fined €56.70 million and Hynix Semiconductor €51.47 million for a cartel of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chip makers that operated from July 1998 to June 2002.
The other companies in the cartel were Hitachi, which received a fine of €20.41 million, Toshiba €17.64 million, Mitsubishi Electric €16.61 million and Nanya Technology €1.80 million.
Elpida was fined €8.50 million jointly with NEC and Hitachi, while NEC took a €2.12 million hit jointly with Hitachi during their joint venture period. NEC got a separate €20.41 million fine.
Micron Technology received immunity and no fine for blowing the whistle on the cartel in 2002.
Samsung Electronics and Hynix are the world's largest and second-largest memory chip makers respectively. DRAM chips are used in personal computers, printers, mobile phones and game consoles.
The case is the first under a European Commission settlement procedure introduced in July 2008 in which companies admit taking part in a cartel in return for a 10 per cent cut in fines.
"By acknowledging their participation in a cartel the companies have allowed the Commission to bring this long-running investigation to a close and to free up resources to investigate other suspected cartels," competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement.
South Korea's antitrust agency last year ended an investigation of the flash memory industry, saying there was no evidence of a price-fixing cartel. Samsung and Toshiba have said US authorities also ended investigations last August.
Reuters