Another Samsung leader was charged

On Dec. 21, US federal prosecutors said that just one more leader of Samsung Electronics was sentenced to 10 months in prison for being involved in fixing the price of DRAM in the global market.

Thus, Mr. Young Hwan Park - President of Samsung Semiconductor - became Samsung's fifth leader this year sentenced to prison for having participated in the incident.

Park was accused of colluding with leaders of other chip makers during the April 2001 to June 2002 period to keep DRAM selling prices as high as possible.

The indictment stated that Mr. Park, along with the leaders of other companies, signed several agreements on fixing DRAM prices in secret meetings. Not only that, these leaders also agreed to change data on DRAM packages to ensure that all suppliers will sell products at prices they have agreed upon.

It is this business that has influenced many global computer manufacturers such as IBM, Dell, Apple .

Chris Goodhart - a spokesman for Samsung - said Mr. Park is still working normally and refuses to reveal the company's future plans.

" Samsung is committed to complying with fair competition rules and does not accept any non-competitive behavior ."

So far, four DRAM memory chip makers and 18 people have been claimed to be involved in the global price fixing of DRAM in an investigation conducted by the US Department of Justice.

Samsung, Elpida Memory, Infineon Technologies AG and Hynix Semiconductor are convicted firms that play an active role in this incident. Consequently, these firms face a fine of up to 729 million USD. Samsung alone has to bear nearly half of this fine - $ 300 million.

Of the 18 people, 15 have been declared guilty, including five leading officials of Samsung, four officials of Infineon and Hynix, a leader of Elpida and a sales manager of Micron Technology.

Mr. Park's punishment is the highest of all published penalties. However, this sentence still needs to be approved by the court before it becomes effective. Mr. Park also agreed to pay a fine of up to $ 250,000.

The US Justice Department said that since 1996 DRAM manufacturers have joined hands to fix DRAM selling prices. At that time, the production of this line of equipment had gone downward as the resale price did not follow that momentum. This is the reason why companies decided to shake hands with each other to bring more profits.

Mr. Thomas O. Barnett - Assistant to the Chief of the Department of Anti-Monopoly Department of the US Department of Justice - affirmed: " Our new step once again confirms we are ready to pull out any light whoever takes action to fix the price of the product. If someone intentionally, they will face the appropriate punishment . "

Recently, similar investigations have rapidly expanded into many other areas such as chip manufacturing, graphics cards and even SDRAM. The US Justice Department refused to disclose more information about these investigations.

Hoang Dung