Infineon agrees to $160mn fine for price fixing
The period covered by the plea bargain is from July 1, 1999 to June 15, 2002. The DoJ-Infineon agreement protects some high-level employees but others could still face charges.
The company reports that its part in the DoJ's ongoing industry wide investigation has been fully resolved. Under the terms of the agreement, Infineon has agreed to pay a fine of $160mn, an amount fully covered by the company's recent Q3 provision. The fine will be paid in equal installments up to 2009.
The wrongdoing charged by the DoJ was limited to certain OEM customers. Infineon is already in contact with these customers and has achieved or is in the process of achieving settlements with all of them. Infineons OEM customers include Hewlett-Packard, Compaq (now merged with HP), Dell and IBM.
The company comments: “Infineon strongly condemns any attempt to fix or stabilize prices. Infineon is committed to vigorous and fair competition based solely on superior products and services.”
The DoJ believes that there was DRAM industry price-fixing cartel involving other as yet unnamed DRAM producers. Computer manufacturers have previously filed class actions on alleged price fixing against Infineon, Samsung, Hynix, Micron and Nanya.
