Infineon To Pay $160 Million For Fixing RAM Prices

Jerrod K writes "Infineon Technologies pleaded guilty to charges of price fixing in an international conspiracy. The Justice Department said this is the third largest antitrust settlement ever. Other memory chip makers involved include Hynix, Samsung, and Micron Technology." Reader phalse phace adds a link to CNET's coverage.

Comments

Sweet.

[rincebrain]

Does that mean I can upgrade my RAM for less than the cost of a new processor now?

I mean, seriously. The prices were ludicrous for high-end manufacturers, and the low-end can sometimes die, and you have no recourse.

Huzzah!

Re:Sweet.

[LionMage]

I recognize that the RAM is, if not the, then one of the most intricate and cost-intensive parts to produce and to purchase.

Well, I can't speak to the cost-intensive part of your assertion, since I am not privy to some details about the economics of chip production. But intricate? Not hardly. DRAM and SRAM chips are laid out mostly in a grid, with very little real-estate set aside for control logic. The only complexity is the control logic; the rest of the chip is just a matrix of transistors (and, in the case of DRAM, one capacitor per transistor to actually store the bit).

RAM chips are pretty easy to design and lay out because of the inherent regularity in their structure.

It really shocks other libertarians when....

[ShatteredDream]

People like myself, who are more classical liberals than libertarians, apply Lord Acton's famous expression "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" to economics. The more wealth that is centralized in faceless organizations, the more power they have. Yet, the wealth is not to be measured in just how much cash they have, but by the position they enjoy which can be worth more than their bank accounts.

Anti-trust laws are nothing more than a way to provide a check on corporate power. They exist to keep companies, especially big corporations, from becoming in Locke's words "a law unto themselves."

Anyone who calls themself a libertarian, opposes antitrust laws and has a sympathetic view of the south in the civil war would do well to read some of the founders of the CSA's opinions on monied corporations. The short summary is that they considered them to be a plague on basic liberties and the free market and were fighting more against the corporations who saught the tariff which taxed the southern economy terribly and used the money to line the pockets of corporations, than it was for "states' rights." The major state's right was to "be free from being sucked dry by monied corporations."

I will say this about monopolies. The government creates many of these headaches that it has to later solve by having expansive IP laws which allow patent holders to rape and pillage innovators. Would someone please tell me why we can patent online shopping carts and file formats? How about business processes in general? What about things we have never even fully or at all implemented ourselves?

If the government were to be reconstituted on classical liberal values, most of these monopolies would die like vampires in the morning sunlight.

Re:Now thats fair.

[lothar97]

What's even more aggrevating is that these companies, once they pay for the mistakes in some manner (such as a fine), they are free to function as if nothing went wrong.

A perfect example is MCI/Worldcom. After imploding under massive amounts of fraud, screwing tons of people out of investments, employment, 401ks, etc, the company gets to "re-organize," pay a fine, then get government contracts. I bet if I'm punished for fraud, I would be shunned for life in any type of business setting.

This corporate crime problem will continue as long as it can be solved by fines, admitting no wrongdoing, and the limited minor punishments for those involved. I imagine if we held these people personally liable for all damage, put the company under 5-10 years probation, and made sure large jail sentances were required, we'd see a lot less of this trickery.

Then again, we don't want to hurt the innocent employess, and we don't want excessive government regulation.

Big cartel, this one? Pffft.

[SenorCitizen]

If you want a *big* international anti-trust case, just try sueing OPEC.

How are they any different?

Re:Now thats fair.

[killjoe]

"Then again, we don't want to hurt the innocent employess, and we don't want excessive government regulation."

Punishing the guilty should not be seen as excessive govt regulation. The solution is simple. Dissolve the corporation and confiscate all the assets.

It's imperitive that the shareholders get screwed in the worse possible way possible. It was their job to make sure their company was run responsibly and it's their fault that the company committed crimes.

Once the assets get liquidated the money should be given as severence pay to all the employees starting at the bottom and working your way to the top until the money runs out.