34 States to Sue 7 Chipmakers Over Price Rigging
Thirty-four U.S. states will sue seven computer
memory chip makers on Friday, including Micron Technology and Infineon
Technologies, over charges they conspired to rig the U.S. market to keep prices
artificially high.
No -- it wasn't different back when we used vacuum tubes instead of silicon chips!
Thirty-four U.S. states will sue seven computer memory chip makers on Friday, including Micron Technology and Infineon Technologies, over charges they conspired to rig the U.S. market to keep prices artificially high.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said on Thursday 33 other states would join a lawsuit alleging the chip makers violated state and federal antitrust laws during a conspiracy to fix prices for dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips, from 1998 through June 2002, when there was a glut in the market.
The complaint, to be filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, charges the companies with fixing DRAM chip prices, artificially restraining supply and rigging bids for contracts.
Those actions caused computer makers such as Apple Computer, Compaq Computer, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard Co. and International Business Machines Corp. to pay more for chips and then pass those costs on to consumers, said Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, another lead plaintiff in the case.
The largest four of the DRAM makers — Samsung, Hynix, Micron and Infineon — and their U.S. units control roughly 70 percent of the U.S. market, which in 2003 represented about $5 billion of the $17 billion in worldwide sales.
No matter where in the production and marketing cycle you find it, price-fixing always ends up screwing the consumer the most.
BTW, the only reason the world’s largest DRAM chip manufacturer isn’t officially listed in the suit — Samsung Electronics — is because they’re already negotiating a settlement out of court.
Posted: Sat - July 15, 2006 at 07:56 AM