Samsung Exec Guilty of RAM Price Fixing

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The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday said that Samsungis vice president of marketing, Thomas Quinn, plead guilty to memory price fixing and will serve eight months in jail. According to InfoWorld, Mr. Quinn was accused of participating in a price-fixing conspiracy.

The DOJ claimed that he helped arrange a scheme to fix the price of DRAM chips and coordinate chip bids in a Sun Microsystems auction on December 5, 2001.

Mr. Quinn agreed to plead guilty and pay a US$250,000 fine in addition to serving jail time. He will also assist in the ongoing price fixing investigation that the DOJ is conduction with the FBI.

Three other Samsung executives plead guilty in similar DOJ charges in March. Samsungis senior manager of DRAM sales, Sun Woo Lee, agreed to a deal that includes an eight month prison sentence. Yeongho Kang, associate director of DRAM Marketing, and Young Woo Lee, sales director for Samsungis German subsidiary, agreed to deals that include seven month prison sentences. All are paying $250,000 fines as well.

In July, 34 states filed cases against several chip makers, for artificially inflating memory prices.

Jeff Gamet

Jeff Gamet

Jeff is the Mac Observer's Managing Editor, and co-host of the Apple Context Machine podcast. He is the author of "The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X" from Peachpit Press, and writes for several design-related publications. Jeff has presented at events such as Macworld Expo, the RSA Conference, and the Mac Computer Expo. In all his spare time, he also co-hosts the We Have Communicators podcast, and makes guest appearances on several other podcasts, too. Jeff dreams in HD.

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