Four Korean Executives Agree to Plea Bargain and Jail Sentences in Price Fixing Conspiracy

Four Korean executives of Hynix Semiconductor Inc. entered guilty pleas to a single count of conspiracy to fix prices in the Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chip market that will include serving sentences from five to eight months in the United States.  The defendants agreed to waive any challenges to U.S. jurisdiction over them and to pay $250,000 fines. The government's investigation of the world-wide price-fixing conspiracy in the DRAM market, which includes sales in the U.S. of over $7 billion annually, has already snared leading manufactures who have entered guilty pleas and agreed to pay hefty fines: Samsung ($300 million), Hynix ($185 million), Infineon ($160 million), and Elpida Memory ($84 million).  A Department of Justice press release (here) discusses the guilty pleas and the investigation. (ph)