DRAM price fixing indictments
A federal grand jury in San Francisco handed down indictments against two executives from Samsung and one from a Hynix U.S. subsidiary, the department said in statement.
The indictment charges that Samsung executives Il Ung Kim and Young Bae Rha and Hynix's Gary Swanson participated in the conspiracy during 2001 and 2002, the department said. The government has blamed the price-fixing scheme for driving up the price of chips used in personal computers, servers, cell phones, cameras and game consoles.
At the time of the alleged price fixing, Kim was vice president of marketing for the memory chip division at Samsung, the department said. Rha was vice president of sales and marketing for the memory division at Samsung.
Both Kim and Rha are citizens and residents of Korea. Swanson, a U.S. resident, was senior vice president of memory sales and marketing for Hynix America.
Earlier this year, four other Hynix executives and four other Samsung executives pleaded guilty in connection with the case and agreed to serve jail terms ranging from five to eight months. In 2004, four Infineon Technologies executives also pleaded guilty and agreed to serve jail terms between four and six months.
In all, four companies and 16 individuals have been charged as a result of the long-running memory chip investigation. The probe also has resulted in fines totaling more that $731 million.
