Nine memory chip makers, including world leader Samsung Electronics, were fined a total 331 million euros ($411 million) by EU regulators on Wednesday for illegally fixing prices. The EU antitrust watchdog levied its biggest penalty of 145.73 million euros against Samsung, while Infineon was fined 56.70 million and Hynix Semiconductor 51.47 million for a cartel of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chip makers that operated from July 1998 to June 2002.
The other companies in the cartel were Hitachi Ltd, which received a fine of 20.41 million euros, Toshiba Corp 17.64 million, Mitsubishi Electric 16.61 million and Nanya Technology 1.80 million. Elpida Memory Inc was fined 8.50 million euros jointly with NEC Corp and Hitachi, while NEC Corp took a 2.12 million euro hit jointly with Hitachi during their joint venture period. NEC got a separate 10.30 million euro fine. Micron Technology received immunity and no fine for blowing the whistle on the cartel in 2002.
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