The fix is in: Another Samsung exec falls in DRAM conspiracy
by Zack Stern 
{ Dec 22nd 2006 at 7:15PM }
The fifth Samsung executive has agreed to a 10-month prison sentence, pleading guilty to conspiring with other companies to fix DRAM prices. Since 2003, the ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation has charged four vendors in the scandal. While Samsung already pleaded guilty and was fined $300 million a year ago, this latest plea relates to OEM price-fixing over 2001 and 2002; if you bought a computer from Dell, HP, Gateway, or Apple, those companies likely passed the extra costs on to you.Once a product becomes a commodity -- like RAM -- the pressure for collusion seems to rise because price is the main product difference; all vendors lose in a price war. We don't think that video cards and GPUs are interchangeable like RAM, but is the graphic industry using similar tricks?
See also:
Uh-oh! Sony part of DoJ's inquiry into SRAM sales
Feds tracking AMD/ATI, Nvidia in antitrust probe
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Einhanderkiller @ Dec 22nd 2006 7:44PM
What's a GUP?
Zack Stern @ Dec 22nd 2006 7:50PM
Thanks, Einhanderkiller. I meant GPU: Graphical Processing Unit.
otakucode @ Dec 22nd 2006 8:46PM
Graphics industry? That's small potatoes. The real scam going on is with LCDs. LCDs are entirely a commodity now, present in over a billion cell phones (that's an educated guess, if you know a more accurate number, please share it), tens of millions of iPods (last number I saw was 46 million sold thus far I believe), tens of millions of competing MP3 and personal video players, millions of TVs, digital photo frames, digital cameras, laptops, and the list could go on.
I've put forward the idea that LCD panel manufacturers were price fixing as glaringly obvious several times and people always try to shoot down the idea. Unfortunately for them, the Department of Justice,the Japanese government, Europe, and Korea are siding with me on this one. All of the LCD panel manufacturers have been served papers accusing them of price fixing, and investigations are underway.
Here is a link to a story about it (perhaps Joystiq should report on it too since LCDs affect millions of handheld gaming devices and game display TVs?):
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/12/14/lcd_manufacturers_price_fixing/
Will @ Dec 23rd 2006 8:09PM
It's great that this is being caught, but where are those fines going? Somehow I doubt consumers who overpayed for these commodities will see a refund... and the cycle continues.