Samsung Exec Guilty of RAM Price Fixing

September 21st, 2006 at 3:00 PM - News by Jeff Gamet

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.