DRAM Makers Accused of Price Fixing

AdamWeeden writes "According to the EETimes, many of the states in the U.S. have entered into a class-action lawsuit against a group of eight DRAM manufacturers. The companies are accused of price-fixing computer memory for over five years, beginning in the late 1990s." From the article: "Four companies and 12 executives have so far pleaded guilty to participating in the conspiracy and have been assessed more than $730 million in fines. In May, three of the four companies, Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Infineon Technologies AG agreed to pay a total of $160 million to settle class action suits related to price fixing. Elpida Memory Inc., the fourth company to plead guilty, is still involved in the class-action suits."

Comments

Price Fixing

[richpulp]

Instead of fining these companies, they should force them to provide double the amount of memory for the same price for say 90 days, e.g. 256mb chip for the same price as 128mb chip: that way the consumer benefits instead of the government.

Re:Great news!

[Otter]

The idea of punitive damages is to, well, punish the guilty. It does not matter, where the money goes -- the consumers benefit from the companies' not doing it again.

Punitive damages should be paid to the government, with no lawyers' cut. Then we'd see how concerned the plaintiffs and lawyers really are about serving humanity through lawsuits.