European antitrust regulators have fined nine semiconductor manufacturers more than USD 404 million following a years-long investigation into price fixing in the market for DRAM memory chips. The European Commission said all of the companies submitted settlements admitting their liability for infringement. The companies fined are Samsung Electronics, Infineon, Hynix Semiconductor, Elpida Memory, NEC Electronics, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric and Nanya Technology. A tenth company, Micron, escaped a fine since it told the Commission about the cartel in 2002.
Bet all the others wished now that it were they that snitched on the cartel.
Weren’t these guys the same bunch of crooks that fixed DRAM prices before?
This isn’t the first time DRAM price fixing was exposed.
And that’s why we don’t have any innovation in ram since years, even the price stayed the same.
All the money they win isn’t sufficient for them ??
Is there any similar hidden contracts for SSD prices ?
I wonder the same about SSD’s. There is a deliberate co-ordinated policy by companies who make flash to deliberately take production off line for so-called ‘maintenance’ when the prices are low but when the prices are high isn’t it amazing when absolutely no maintenance is required. I truly am surprised that how obvious the flash cartel is by their behaviour when conducting business.
Sure, run after DRAM producers but quite frankly I think that is nothing more than grand standing on behalf of regulators who have allowed the rift off scheme to continue for such a long time. When are we going to see them finally do something about flash? or do these regulators have more concern their local producers than upholding regulatory requirements?
All else being equal, price fixing alone would speed innovation in DRAM by giving DRAM makers a disproportionate share of the pie. Innovation in other sectors is what would drop.
You’d need the cartel to commit not to develop products as well, which–if it even existed–it might also have done.
I’m not sure if this really matters. In cartels like this someone is always bound to break. Some member will come up with new tech or new production methods that give them the edge and they’ll use it.
Cartels over physical commodities like diamonds and oil are much harder to break, and of course, that’s why all governments (EU nations included) ignore them entirely.
Edited 2010-05-20 22:00 UTC