A top administrator from Samsung Electronics will serve well 10 months in prison house and pay a $ 250,000 fine for his role in a global conspiracy to fix DRAM ( active RAM ) Mary Leontyne Price , the U.S. Department of Justice ( DOJ ) announce .
Young Hwan Park , currently president of Samsung ’s U.S. subsidiary company Samsung Semiconductor , tally Thursday to plead shamed to a violation of the U.S. Sherman Antitrust Act for conspiring with other fellowship to fix DRAM prices , according to court records .
Park , formerly frailty chair of sales at Samsung , is the 5th Samsung executive to agree to prison sentences in the DOJ ’s ongoing price - fixing probe . Samsung , establish in South Korea , is the domain ’s largest manufacturer of DRAM , a memory chip commonly used in PC and several other electronic equipment .
Since December 2003 , the DOJ has charged four DRAM vendors and 18 people in the price - fixing investigation .
multitude who “ pick out to wage in price fixing are on notice of the consequences of their illegal actions — criminal fines and prison house time , ” Thomas O. Barnett , assistant lawyer general in charge of the DOJ ’s Antitrust Division , said in a affirmation .
Park conspired with employee from other memory Godhead to doctor the price of DRAM sold to OEMs ( original equipment manufacturers ) from April 2001 to June 2002 , according to a felony judicature file Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco . Computer manufacturer regard by the cost fastener included Dell , Hewlett - Packard , Apple and Gateway , the DOJ read .
Park participated in meeting with other drachm makers where the price of DRAM were discussed , and he committed to burden the agreed prices , the DOJ said .
Samsung plead guilty to the price - repair confederacy and was doom to pay a $ 300 million fine in November 2005 . Hynix Semiconductor , the world ’s secondly - largest DRAM manufacturing business , pleaded guilty and was condemn to pay a $ 185 million amercement in May 2005 .
In January , Nipponese maker Elpida Memory agreed to plead shamefaced and pay an $ 84 million mulct . In October 2004 , German producer Infineon Technologies plead guilty and was doom to pay a $ 160 million fine .
