Three Samsung Executives to Serve Prison Terms in DRAM Chip Antitrust Prosecution

The government's wide-ranging investigation of price-fixing in the dynamic random access memory (DRAM)chip market has resulted in three more foreign defendants agreeing to serve prison terms in the United States.  Three executives from Samsung, Sun Woo Lee, the senior manager of DRAM sales, Yeongho Kang, associate director of DRAM marketing for Samsung’s U.S. subsidiary, and Young Woo Lee, sales director for Samsung’s German subsidiary, entered guilty pleas to a single antitrust conspiracy charge.  Sun Woo Lee will be sentenced to eight months, and Kang and Young Woo Lee to sevenths each.  Three Korean executives from Hynix Semiconductor and four executives from the German company Infineon Technologies earlier entered guilty pleas and will serve prison terms in the U.S.  Samsung, the largest company in the DRAM market, agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and pay a $300 million fine in November 2005.  A Department of Justice press release (here) discusses the prosecutions. (ph)