Infineon Execs Plead Guilty to Price-Fixing

An anonymous reader writes "Executives at Infineon Technologies plead guilty to an international conspiracy to fix prices in the DRAM market. Heinrich Florian, Günter Hefner, Peter Schaefer and T. Rudd Corwin, executives for Infineon Technologies, had a felony filed against them yesterday in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Each executive could spend up to six months in prison and will have to pay a $250,000 fine. Under the plea agreement, they must also assist the government in its DRAM investigation. Infineon agreed in October to pay a $160 million fine for its role in the conspiracy, according to the Justice Department."

Comments

An honest question..

[lordsilence]

If there has been a widespread "price-fixing", will there be any refund for those who has bought these overpriced memory devices?

Re:An honest question..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure a class-action lawsuit will be along soon. Just wait; you'll recieve a check for 3 cents within the year! Just don't ask what the lawyers got.

Re:An honest question..

[cyberise]

Sure the companies make the millions of dollars and that is why Infineon was fined that 160 million. Im sure that the $250,000 fine per executive is going to make them feel some hurt in the wallet.

Re:An honest question..

[One Blue Ninja]

Well wait a minute, what about the 6 months of jail time? That seems like a real punishment, if they actually end up serving it. And if they all serve it at once, it won't be too good for business!

I hope you're right. But this *IS* America, so rich white corporate execs don't suffer prison time quite the same way everyone else does. Remind me again which cell block Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Bernard Ebbers are in?

Between shady deals with prosecutors, early parole, and the favors their money can buy, I don't think he'll actually be in for 6 months. If he iis, I'm sure it will NOT be in a hard-core prison.

Young black male convicted of $1,000 robbery: 20 years hard time.

Rich white exec, convicted of robbing millions of people out of billions of dollars: a few months in minimum-security.

And they have the gall to call themselves the "Justice Department".

6 months?

[_w00d_]

We need stiffer penalties against crimes like this. 6 months and $250,000? These execs stand to make tons more conducting illegal business than what they'll have to give up if they get caught. There has to be many more companies using illegal business practices in the US to get ahead, they just haven't been caught yet. This sentencing doesn't seem like it will be a real deterrent for that kind of behavior either.

Still a lot of bad business out there

[SwedeGeek]

Anyone think the Infineon execs will take this as badly as the CEO of CyberNET (see this article)??

It somewhat still amazes me that these people think because they are supposedly good at business that they are going to be good at breaking the law. At what point does making an amazingly fat paycheck stop a person from wanting more? As incidences like these continue to happen, I get closer and closer to believing it never ends... and that's not even mentioning the big ones like Enron and MCI.

Here's a vote to salary caps in the corporate world!!!

Re:Now why couldn't the DOJ have

[One Blue Ninja]

Because MS is an American company, so the DOJ/US Gov't make money off MS. Infineon is an "evil company" because they're "foreign", and taking advantage of us poor Americans. If it's the other way around, the DOJ doesn't give a damn. Plus, the DOJ is currently too worried about porn.

translation

[frovingslosh]

Infineon agreed in October to pay a $160 million fine for its role in the conspiracy, according to the Justice Department

This translates into:

Infineon stole so much that they could easily pay a $160 million cut to the government, who wanted their share, even though they did nothing to deserve it. In return they let the company continue to do business as usual, and suggest that they price fix in less obvious ways next time. They also asked the company to offer up a few scape goats, who would get a token amount of time in a federal luxury prison like Camp Cupcake or Club Fed, but would be out in even less time than Martha Stewart. The people who bought the artifically high priced memory get screwed.