The encyclopedia · Legal & Compliance · Legal decision · 1999-2005
Samsung and Hynix fixed memory-chip prices by phone and email — $645M in US fines
Executives coordinated DRAM prices with rivals through calls, emails and in-person meetings — the kind of conspiracy that leaves a paper trail.
Samsung Electronics · SK Hynix · Infineon · 2005-10-13
What happened
From at least 1999, memory-chip makers Samsung, Hynix and Infineon coordinated DRAM prices sold to major PC makers, using phone calls, emails and in-person meetings to keep prices from falling as competition would normally have forced them to. DRAM is a commodity chip in every computer, so the conspiracy touched a large share of the PC industry's costs.
The US Department of Justice's antitrust division built its case on the communications record the companies had themselves generated — internal emails and call logs became the evidence, not just customer price complaints.
Infineon pleaded guilty first, paying $160 million in October 2004. Hynix followed in May 2005 with $185 million. Samsung, the largest of the three by DRAM market share, pleaded guilty on October 13, 2005, and paid the largest fine at the time in Sherman Act history: $300 million — bringing the combined total to $645 million.
Why it happened
- Samsung, Hynix and Infineon coordinated DRAM prices to PC makers through phone, email and in-person contact from at least 1999.
- The conspiracy's own paper trail — emails and call logs — became the DOJ's primary evidence.
- Samsung's $300 million fine was, at the time, the second-largest criminal antitrust fine in US history.
- All three pleaded guilty rather than contest the charges, given the volume of internal correspondence prosecutors had obtained.
The lesson
A price-fixing conspiracy conducted over email and phone doesn't just risk getting caught — it manufactures the prosecution's evidence file in real time.
Aftermath
The DOJ prosecutions were followed by parallel private class-action suits and EU antitrust investigations into the same DRAM cartel, extending the companies' exposure well past the criminal fines.
Sources
- Samsung Agrees to Plead Guilty and to Pay $300 Million Criminal Fine — US Department of Justice
- Samsung Admits to Price Fixing — Los Angeles Times
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