Chips are down for DRAM cartel as they are fined €331m

Nine suppliers of Dynamic Random Access Memory chips to PC and server original equipment manufacturers have been fined a total of €331m for breaching European Union competition law. Those fines were reduced because of the parties’ co-operation with the European Commission’s investigation. A tenth company, Micron, received total immunity for being a whistleblower. The parties had shared secret information in which they colluded on pricing and quotes, contrary to Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (formerly Article 81 of the EC Treaty). The nine companies fined were Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, NEC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Elpida and Nanya. Despite nine of the ten participants being based outside of the EU, the European Commission was able to hand out the fines because the illegal activities affected trade within the EU.