Wednesday, May 19th 2010
EU Slaps Chip Vendors with Penalties for Price-Fixing
As many as nine major chip vendors were fined a total of 331 million Euros (US $404.2 million) for participating in illegal price-fixing activities, by the European Union authorities. These include Samsung, Hynix, Nanya, Elpida, Infineon, NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Mitsubishi. A 10th company in this price-fixing cartel was Micron Technology, which escaped the fine for exposing the malpractice to the EU authorities. Of these Samsung was given the single biggest fine of 146 million Euros, followed by Infineon at 57 million Euros. The fines were reduced by 10% because all companies extended cooperation in the investigations.
The price-fixing cartel mostly involved bad trade of DRAM chips, and was active between 1998 and 2002, operating with a network of contacts which secretly exchanged pricing information. They colluded to fix prices of DRAM chips sold to major PC and server manufacturers. Investigations in the scam began in 2002 when Micron blew the whistle on the cartel. "By acknowledging their participation in a cartel the companies have allowed the Commission to bring this long-running investigation to a close and to free up resources to investigate other suspected cartels," said EU's Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia. "As the procedure is applied to new cases it is expected to speed up investigations significantly," he added.
Source:
BBC News
The price-fixing cartel mostly involved bad trade of DRAM chips, and was active between 1998 and 2002, operating with a network of contacts which secretly exchanged pricing information. They colluded to fix prices of DRAM chips sold to major PC and server manufacturers. Investigations in the scam began in 2002 when Micron blew the whistle on the cartel. "By acknowledging their participation in a cartel the companies have allowed the Commission to bring this long-running investigation to a close and to free up resources to investigate other suspected cartels," said EU's Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia. "As the procedure is applied to new cases it is expected to speed up investigations significantly," he added.
46 Comments on EU Slaps Chip Vendors with Penalties for Price-Fixing
Price fixing does not always mean keeping the prices really high, it can just be preventing it going so low that you make a loss on sales, but either way it is still illegal.
Supply and demand...
What i can say is that I got my 4GB Dominator Gt's for the smae price I paid for my 2GB GSKill HZ($249)
Prices are a bit high, IMHO, for only select sticks. the actual price per IC hasn't changed much though. It's the DIMM makers that are at fault here, for our purposes, IMHO. We are opaying more, not due to IC costs, but due to DIMM makers not being able to assemble sticks fast enough. Took me a long time to get my second set of GT's...in the end, I got a set from teh same batch as my first, but from the other side of the continent.
So obviously, there is some supply issues, on both sides of the pond.
However, as I mentioned, IC pricing hasn't changed much in the past 2 years, and it's the IC makers that are the focus of this "fine".
We really need to seperate how we look at things like this...each and every level of the industry is stuck by different issues. What we pay, isn't the level that is being looked at here...it's not OCZ/GSkill/Kingston/Corsair getting fined...
This is common practice...even after paying fines, they will still have made a profit any way. Same with LCD panels...why do you think prices are so cheap now for monitors/TVs...price fixing judgements.
EDIT, FYI, after digging into this a bit more, these fines are from 1999-2002...all these companies were already fined for this in the US, as I mention in this post. For something that happened almost 10 years ago, this really is a cash grab by EU.If they had done this back when the US did, it wouldn't seem so out of place. Maybe thier investigation took longer...possible, I suppose...
did they REALLY need to cost that much?? because I later perchased a Elixer ram PC3200 2Gb Value set that would do something like 480mhz+ on relaxed timings of 3-3-3-8 at almost no increase to voltage for £40. I never could really overclock that OCZ set.
:EDIT:
but its great their cracking down on it now...but its a little too late aint it?? they could have done something when the price fixing scheme was in full swing but they just sat there & watched until now?? shit. 10years just to fine them when they were taking us for a ride.
nobody puts the money back into the consumers pocket - the real victims. especially for us Brits....everything is so unbelievably expensive here (=__=)
Notice that ATI paid out customers and sent video cards in lieu of payment...for those that actually registered a complaint. Noet that this was also for a "price fixing" suit. I'm sure more than me on this forum got a card...I got cash back from Rockstar for GTA SanAndreas too...
Sit back do nothing, you can only expect nothing. Start making waves, and maybe the boat will rock a bit...
:shadedshu