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

Good news for Vista

[Datalanche]

At least now Microsoft can change the recommended specs for Vista Super Ultra Platinum edition to a couple of gigs of RAM since it won't cost as much.

Fixing the Fixers

[Doc Ruby]

When the government fines pricefixers, the money goes into the slushfund to pay for, eg, a bigger Iraq War.

When they award damages, the money goes to people who actually bought the product anyway.

What about the people who didn't buy the product, because it was too expensive? The remedy can never go back in time to redo the results. But the pricefixers should have to sell their product at least as much below a competitive price as they fixed it above one. Maybe even just giving away free at the same rate they sold at the fixed prices.