Price Fixing News

Staff -- Purchasing, 11/3/2005

• Electronics giant Samsung Electronics has agreed to pay a $300 million fine to settle a three-year old DRAM price-fixing case brought about by U.S. Justice Department. Guilty pleas have already come in from two other top DRAM manufacturers, Infineon of Germany paid a $160 million fine and Hynix Semiconductor based in South Korea paid $185 million for conspiring over prices from 1999 to 2002. Samsung was hit with the heaviest fine, however, based on its market share. Micron Technology does not expect to be charged because it has helped prosecutors. Victims of the price-fixing cartel included Dell, Hewlett-Packard Co., Apple Computer, IBM and Gateway, the government said in court papers filed in San Francisco.
• The Indiana ready-mix concrete industry is being racked by price-fixing suits. A federal judge ordered Lee's Ready Mix of North Vernon Ind. to pay a $500,000 fine in October for price-fixing violations. Federal prosecutors had charged the company with participating in a conspiracy to fix the price of mixed concrete it sold in three separate counties between February 2003 and June 2004. The company pleaded guilty to the charges in July and Larry L. Lee, the company's former president was sentenced to eight months in prison and fined $70,000. This news comes on the heels of the case of Greenfield, Ind.-based Irving Materials, (IMI) which in June agreed to pay $29.2 million in fines, tied to what federal investigators said was at its height, a widespread price-fixing conspiracy in the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to news reports, the state of Indiana and at least one federal agency are considering a multiyear ban on business with IMI and or other price-fixers convicted in the case.