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The Courts Government News Hardware

Infineon Execs Plead Guilty to Price-Fixing 195

Posted by michael from the meet-martha dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Executives at Infineon Technologies plead guilty to an international conspiracy to fix prices in the DRAM market. Heinrich Florian, Günter Hefner, Peter Schaefer and T. Rudd Corwin, executives for Infineon Technologies, had a felony filed against them yesterday in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Each executive could spend up to six months in prison and will have to pay a $250,000 fine. Under the plea agreement, they must also assist the government in its DRAM investigation. Infineon agreed in October to pay a $160 million fine for its role in the conspiracy, according to the Justice Department."
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Infineon Execs Plead Guilty to Price-Fixing More

Infineon Execs Plead Guilty to Price-Fixing

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  • An honest question.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lordsilence ( 682367 ) * on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:07AM (#10995769) Homepage
    If there has been a widespread "price-fixing", will there be any refund for those who has bought these overpriced memory devices?
    • And if so, how will they determine whom should be recompensed???

      My understanding is this has been going on for a long time. How would we determine what market rates should be?

    • Re:An honest question.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:15AM (#10995790)
      I'm sure a class-action lawsuit will be along soon. Just wait; you'll recieve a check for 3 cents within the year! Just don't ask what the lawyers got.
    • Its not about the consumer, its about the feds getting some extra bucks.
    • Ahahahahaha! Sure, if you're one of the lawyers who filed the suit... Otherwise, the gov't gets the money. Did you think the lawyers really filed suit on OUR behalf? Come, now... :-) Plus, I'm sure the $160 million fine the company paid paled in comparison to how much extra they charged consumers, and the execs surely made a lot more than the $250,000 fine they have to pay. In essense, pleading guilty and paying the fines is just good business, in the same way that paying a $35 parking ticket in NYC while
      • In essense, pleading guilty and paying the fines is just good business, in the same way that paying a $35 parking ticket in NYC while on a $2,500 service call is just good business... Sad.
        Well wait a minute, what about the 6 months of jail time? That seems like a real punishment, if they actually end up serving it. And if they all serve it at once, it won't be too good for business!

        • Re:An honest question.. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by One Blue Ninja ( 801126 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @11:26AM (#10996189) Homepage
          Well wait a minute, what about the 6 months of jail time? That seems like a real punishment, if they actually end up serving it. And if they all serve it at once, it won't be too good for business!
          I hope you're right. But this *IS* America, so rich white corporate execs don't suffer prison time quite the same way everyone else does. Remind me again which cell block Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Bernard Ebbers are in?

          Between shady deals with prosecutors, early parole, and the favors their money can buy, I don't think he'll actually be in for 6 months. If he iis, I'm sure it will NOT be in a hard-core prison.

          Young black male convicted of $1,000 robbery: 20 years hard time.

          Rich white exec, convicted of robbing millions of people out of billions of dollars: a few months in minimum-security.

          And they have the gall to call themselves the "Justice Department".

          • Re:An honest question.. (Score:4, Informative)

            by Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS- ( 624050 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @12:43PM (#10996499) Journal
            There is no parole for federal crimes. IANAL (yet), but I interned in the USAO in DC 2 years ago. You serve your whole sentence. There is no time off for good behavior.

            • Re:An honest question.. (Score:3, Interesting)

              by sjames ( 1099 )

              The really sick thing about it is given the conditions in the 'prison' they will be in, a great many people would line up for a free six month stay there if it were offered. There are no bars, just a hedge outside you're not supposed to go past.

              They can't have prisons like that for everyone because too many people would deliberatly get caught so they could go there.

              Personally, I believe that no prison should be anything but civil to live in nor better than the conditions the poorest law abiding citizen li

          • I hope you're right. But this *IS* America, so rich white corporate execs don't suffer prison time quite the same way everyone else does. Remind me again which cell block Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Bernard Ebbers are in?

            I guess a different one than Martha Stewart. ;-)
      • In essense, pleading guilty and paying the fines is just good business, in the same way that paying a $35 parking ticket in NYC while on a $2,500 service call is just good business...Sad

        Which is why its high time for Uncle Sam to start revoking corporate charters for misbehaving corporations.

        That just made me think ... if a corporation is a legal person, then revoking a charter is similar to the death penalty. Furthermore, one could make an arguement that price fixing is not a crime that warrants the de
        • Yes, revocation of charter is often referred to as the corporate death penalty, and it does happen occasionally. However any more for it to be applied the business essentially has to have either been setup or run for some time solely as a fraudulent enterprise, misconduct along the lines of simple collusion would most likely NOT qualify a company for revocation. Revocation of charter was somewhat more common in the 19th century because the idea that a corporation existed to serve the common good was much st
          • Damn I hate responding to myself but a good example of revocation in action from the NY State Attorney General can be seen here [registeredrep.com]. As you can see he believed that the corporation was being run primarily as a criminal enterprise and as such it was eligible for the corporate death penalty. I very much doubt that anyone would find similar reason in fact about the Infineon case.

    • Re:An honest question.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mog007 ( 677810 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <700goM>> on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:28AM (#10995830)
      Where is the logic behind this judgement? Ignore that it'll get appealed, and focus on this. A 250,000 dollar fine?! That's insane. These companies make upwards of millions of dollars and you fine them a quarter of a million? $250,000 is what the MPAA has established as fair for uploading a movie through bittorrent.

      • Re:An honest question.. (Score:5, Informative)

        by cyberise ( 621539 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:43AM (#10995868)
        Sure the companies make the millions of dollars and that is why Infineon was fined that 160 million. Im sure that the $250,000 fine per executive is going to make them feel some hurt in the wallet.
      • pay attention: Infineon agreed in October to pay a $160 million fine for its role in the conspiracy, according to the Justice Department

        But yes, it is crazy to let the actual people who did this off with such a slap on the wrist. They ikely will still draw their fat cat pay checks while in prison if they ever do go too!

      • These companies make upwards of millions of dollars and you fine them a quarter of a million?
        That is the fine for the individuals involved. The company was fined $160,000,000. That's slightly more painful.

      • Re:An honest question.. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mcc ( 14761 )
        Not quite. It's a $250,000 fine (and in some cases some short jail terms) for each of the executives and a $1.6 million fine for the company, and it would be awfully weird for any of this to be appealed as it all appears to be part of plea agreements. Unfortunately, this is still quite probably not enough to realistically undo the gains that either the executives (how much did Ulrich Schumacher make a year?) or the company made off of the price fixing action. In fact as far as I can tell it appears that the

        • Oops (Score:1)

          by mcc ( 14761 )
          Little problem with the decimal point there, I meant $160 million not $1.6 million. This doesn't change anything I've said though, and that's still less than half of €345 million...

        • But this just appears to be the model being pioneered for widescale use by the Bush Department of Justice: Corporate crime, defrauding investors and consumers, using a company on which other peoples' livelihoods rest as a device to line your own pockets, antitrust violations, and similar things aren't illegal anymore, exactly; they're just taxed.

          I dislike President Bush the Chimpanzee (thank god he's not black or I couldn't get away with saying that no matter how much he looked like a monkey) as much

      • A 250,000 dollar fine and 4-6 months of prison. And that under a plea bargain.
      • A 250,000 dollar fine?! That's insane.

        That's better than the $1 per person fine that executives of GM, Firestone, Standard Oil and Philips Petroleum got for being found guilty of conspiracy when they destroyed mass transit systems all around the nation back in the late fifties.

      • That's $250k out of each officer's personal checking account. The company gets to pony up $160M.

        For us, thats like getting hit with a fine of two year's take home salary (like maybe $80k to $100k - I said take home, not gross.) Not something that would destroy us ... no, come to think of it that would destroy some of us.
    • No refund of substance, probably, and I'm sure they'll pass the cost of the lawsuit and the fines on to the consumer.

    • translation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:54AM (#10995897)
      Infineon agreed in October to pay a $160 million fine for its role in the conspiracy, according to the Justice Department

      This translates into:

      Infineon stole so much that they could easily pay a $160 million cut to the government, who wanted their share, even though they did nothing to deserve it. In return they let the company continue to do business as usual, and suggest that they price fix in less obvious ways next time. They also asked the company to offer up a few scape goats, who would get a token amount of time in a federal luxury prison like Camp Cupcake or Club Fed, but would be out in even less time than Martha Stewart. The people who bought the artifically high priced memory get screwed.

      • if the prices were so "artificially" high, then why did people buy? and if they own something, who is the government to say how much it should sell for? apparently it wasnt so expensive that people stopped willfully purchasing it. i guess the government hates when people exchange money for goods and services at prices agreed to by both parties. i dont need the tyrannical force of the government taking my tax money to help protect me from paying too much for memory. maybe some other chumps do though. i ca

        • Re:translation (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          if the prices were so "artificially" high, then why did people buy?

          You are aware that a supply/demand graph is continuous and it's not that you hit the optimal point and everyone buys your product.. right?
          So there were people willing to buy, but the point is that even though someone else *could* sell for less, they agreed to keep it artificially high. That's collusion against the free market. The point is to let the market decide what the price should be through competition, not some asshats who are a

        • Re:translation (Score:5, Insightful)

          by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @11:37AM (#10996243)
          What part of Price-Fixing [google.com] is not clear?
        • Agreed. I don't think you can call something "overpriced" after you've bought it. If you paid money for it, it was at exactly the right price or below.
          • Agreed. I don't think you can call something "overpriced" after you've bought it. If you paid money for it, it was at exactly the right price or below.

            Yes and no. Technically you are correct... paying the inflated price is a better alternative than being denied the benefit of what you're paying for. Such as if a family member were dying in hospital and your car runs off the road into a ditch. That $2000 bill from the tow truck who just happened to be the only one available may be overpriced relative to

      • who would get a token amount of time in a federal luxury prison like Camp Cupcake

        Not federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison?
    • Based on the article, I believe this lawsuit is related to the allegations that Rambus made earlier. Rambus claimed that DRAM manufacturers were conspiring to price Rambus memory out of the market so they could drive the company out of business and get its technology cheaply.

      Rambus said that Rambus memory should have been priced only slightly higher than SDR SDRAM, based on manufacturing and licensing costs, and that they were always clear with JEDEC on what patents they held and what licensing terms they

      • You mean these guys get fined for selling RAM cheaper?
        • The same DRAM manufacturers produced both SDR (and later DDR) DRAM, and Rambus DRAM. Rambus never had fabrication facilities for producing memory, so it relied on the DRAM manufacturers to license its intellectual property, then make and sell RDRAM.

          The price fixing that Rambus alleged was a conspiracy to charge much more for Rambus memory than a competitive market would. Since the same group of companies controlled the supply of both types of memory, they could do this. Rambus claimed that Rambus memory s

          • Well they weren't correct from that perspective, there was a LOT more verification steps needed early on in RDRAM's existince. It pushed the fab and material technology of the time MUCH harder than SDR DRAM or even early DDR DRAM. Verification is one of the most expensive components of chips because it takes time (money) and expensive custom machinery to do as well as additional labor or expensive labor replacement devices like sort and pick robots. Basically the inputs would have made RDRAM more expensive
        • They are fined for colluding, first to drive competitors out of the market--and this succeeded to some extent--and then to coordinate pricing for major OEMs. This is a violation of antitrust laws.

          There are similar investigations underway in Europe and Japan. Infineon isn't done yet, but they got some leniency from the Dept. of Justice for being the first squealer. Still, when is the last time you heard about executives doing jail time for something like this? And the shareholder and consumer class acti
    • "will there be any refund for those who has bought these overpriced memory devices?"

      Well actually, given that the price-fixing was them holding the prices artificially LOW, I think the question ought to be will you be paying the extra amount (the difference between what you paid and what they should have charged) on those underpriced memory devices...

  • In the mean time (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Infineon blames low chip fixed price for bankruptcy.

  • Flash: Greed comes to Man Kind (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rinoid ( 451982 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:13AM (#10995783)
    Is this surprising?

    The rest of the world is getting obese just like Americans... everyone is greedy to a point. Some are just able to carry their greed to the point of complete selfishness and totally ignore the high percentage of people who have a hard time just keeping a roof over their heads.

    What the heck will it take? Evolution of the human species? I always think back to those old Star Trek episodes where they land on some planet where the inhabitants laugh kindly at Earth's culture because they have learned to live without greed, take care of everyone, and actually enjoy sex rather than codify it.

    I don't know why I want to write this... mod at your leisure.

    • Re:Flash: Greed comes to Man Kind (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I've always been of the understanding that greed is dependant on pride. IE, You deserve more because "You're worth it".

      Back pre-rennaissance, pride was shunned. It was the highest sin against god, it was what got us kicked out of eden. (if you believe in the bible, I dont personally but it has some interesting reading in it)

      We could make it possible again where society shuns pride and earthly possessions, however, not everyone will do it, and the ones that won't will take advantage of everyone else. How

      • Re:Flash: Greed comes to Man Kind (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Let's also not forget "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours Ox". Like you I'm not a belivier, but it seems like the Bible is pretty clear on this; Pride and Greed are bad.
      • Dunno, I always thought of greed as being driven by personal insecurity - trying to gain more material possessions so that you don't worry about being crushed by external forces. The "I deserve this!" attitude is more of a rationale for _why_ they're so desperate to grab all those resources.

        For some people, though, there doesn't appear to be any form of feedback which says "enough!" I personally think that the "greed is good" meme which is constantly echoed & reinforced throughout the U.S. society has
    • Unfortunately this IS the evolution of the human species and greed will win.

      Think about it, who's thriving right now? Greedy *$$h*les who make the rules for the rest and break them at their leisure.

      I mean, any one of those execs who will be fined 250G made a lot more than that, and with ANY reasonably skilled lawyer will avoid even minimal jail time. Know what that spells? Profit.

      I make millions and I'm fined thousands, that's the cost of doing business.

      Sigh.

      • Think about it, who's thriving right now? Greedy *$$h*les who make the rules for the rest and break them at their leisure.

        Greed may or may not be a long term successful strategy. The greedy population often does fairly well, but inevitably pushes too hard, then heads get chopped off and mansions get burned down (periodic population crash) and the cycle begins again.

        In actuality, greed may be more of a negative trait in the sense of representing the lsck of rather than the presense of something. Small

    • Your obesity comparison is a bit funny... but
      to add something to this:

      IMHO such things are the reason why there are no free markets and why there never will be really "free markets". Good that they got caught doing this, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

      People lament over and over again how 'the free market will fix every problem and is the most efficient solution there is...'. Problem is that somehow the feedback of the corporations back onto the government to change the rules and/or the violation
    • I fear that greed is a feeling as natural as hunger or love. Our human mind is a complex weave of many different aspects, some being good, some bad.

      Ethics teach that a selfish attitude does not help anyone, the last being one self, in the long run. But that idea is as old as human culture and religion, and we seemingly didn't learn much from that time until today.

      You can always try better as individual person, but don't expect the same from society as a whole...

      • I fear that greed is a feeling as natural as hunger or love.

        Greed is normally restrained by empathy. Would you take the food from your partner, or your children or your friends for yourself? Would you even steal money from casual acquaintances? Almost certainly not. In all these cases, these are people you can see and recieve feedback from.

        In the business world, you seldom see your victims. In actuality, steps are taken to avoid it. Those who are rich often psychologically divorce the poor into a se

    • Priorites? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MisterSquid ( 231834 )

      Some are just able to carry their greed to the point of complete selfishness and totally ignore the high percentage of people who have a hard time just keeping a roof over their heads.

      You mean like these people [slashdot.org]

      What amazes|saddens|stuns|infuriates me is that price-fixing which targets the arguably already-wealthy who can afford high technology purchases is processed relatively quickly while the at best lethal neglect of the managers and owners of Union Carbide will never see a court docket.

      Dumb, stu

    • It may not be surprising but it is insulting to see a max sentence of six months for a crime involving MILLIONS. The more the person attempts to steal the more time they should serve. Remind me again how much time you get for stealing a car worth 1,001 dollars?

      >everyone is greedy to a point.

      And who exactly is above this? Greed is extreme selfishness, but we all suffer from selfishness. If we didn't why would we get off our asses, go to school, get a job, start a side project or two or three, etc. You
    • Why keep picking on us? Come on, admit it: you nurse a secret desire to barrel down the highway at 90+ MPH in a 9 MPG SUV. Unless you mean that we're literally becoming fat in which case would have to agree with you. I know I could stand to lose a few pounds. But I deny that the average American citizen is somehow more "greedy" than anyone else on the planet: our way of life has given us a lot of options to choose from but that doesn't make us greedy. It just makes us more successful. Rather than bitch
    • Fuck you and that comment. Greed predates American culture. Look at the Roman and Grecian empires. Look at the whole reason white people came to North America, South America, and Latin America. Look at the reason white people went to Africa. Look at the reason India was a Brittish colony for so long. It wasn't for furthering other societies.

      Americans did not invent greed. It's just that like most things, we do it better.
      • Heh. It's not even a human thing. My cat will eat all the food I give him, and has no remorse about eating off my plate too, if I'm not paying attention. I bet a T-Rex acts the same way. Or an ameoba.

        Greed isn't some kind of species flaw; it's right there in the premise of game theory. It's mathematical.

  • Now why couldn't the DOJ have (Score:3, Interesting)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:15AM (#10995794)
    applied a similar punishment to Microsoft for having violated the Sherman Act??? That's just as serious and the consequences for the customers were just as severe. Artificially raised prices as a result of the monopoly and a lack of choice.

    • Re:Now why couldn't the DOJ have (Score:5, Insightful)

      by One Blue Ninja ( 801126 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:32AM (#10995844) Homepage
      Because MS is an American company, so the DOJ/US Gov't make money off MS. Infineon is an "evil company" because they're "foreign", and taking advantage of us poor Americans. If it's the other way around, the DOJ doesn't give a damn. Plus, the DOJ is currently too worried about porn.

  • Where does the money go? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just interesting to where and how the money gets distributed.

  • 6 months? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by _w00d_ ( 129045 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:22AM (#10995809)
    We need stiffer penalties against crimes like this. 6 months and $250,000? These execs stand to make tons more conducting illegal business than what they'll have to give up if they get caught. There has to be many more companies using illegal business practices in the US to get ahead, they just haven't been caught yet. This sentencing doesn't seem like it will be a real deterrent for that kind of behavior either.

    • Re:6 months? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Every now and then (very rarely), an exec found guilty of wrongdoing will be banned from ever being in a board or CxO position at a corporation again.

      It's usually reserved for making an example out of people though, so you see it for Martha Stewart types of criminals rather than for well-connected Enron types of criminals.

    • Re:6 months? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      I agree the financial fine needs to be a bit stiffer but so does the prison situation - specifically, we need to send these people to federal pound me in the ass prison, not some cushy place where they get their own room and they get to play croquet with their fellow white-collar inmates on the weekends.

      As I said in a comment over in the bhopal disaster revisited story, the threat of prison sentences and other punishment can actually be effective with these people because they have something to lose. It

      • "and it's possible to get incarcerated and infected because you're a careless pot smoker. "

        Ummm, you need to have a LOT of pot on you for them to haul you off to jail, IIRC. Something about anything under an ounce or something is just possession, if I'm correct. Anything higher, it could be possession with intent, or possibly trafficing (sp?).
        • I've never met a pothead who's never bought at least an ounce at once for a party, or for a week. It just makes more sense to do that than buy it by the rigger. Doesn't mean you deserve to get "effed in the a" by some rapist / murderer. America is seriously fucked up.
      • White isn't an issue in this - being rich is. If they were rich black or oriental men they'ed still be free. The only reason that there seems to be a corralation with race is that rich people (men and women) whose families have been rich for a long time have more connections will always have it easier. People who are connected with old families because they are famous will also have it easier.
        Even if this were not so, federal prison would still be easier for the rich - all they would have to do is pay off

  • YRO? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bobbagum ( 556152 ) <bobbagum@gmail.com> on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:23AM (#10995811) Homepage
    Why exactly is this in your rights online? Maybe we need a legal section, or perhaps evil companies section

  • Sometimes this sort of behaviour may not be so bad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:26AM (#10995822)
    I can't help but remember the time when there was a glut of RAM, too many factories were built and RAM was cheap. Yes, that was good, in the short term, but the problem was that the low price lead to manufacturers going out of business and prices shot up.

    The RAM industry is harsh. It's a commodity, and there's probably little profit in it. Little enough to make starting up a RAM factory, or updating the tech, a big financial risk. Above all we need stability in it.

    Yes, market economies are good, but not perfect. Maybe this is an example where some amount of regulation is required to assure a steady supply of quality RAM? In a sense, price fixing can be compared to regulation. It's usually illegal and often undesirable, but maybe sometimes it serves a purpose?

    Yes, I'd like to get cheap RAM, but not at the expense of quality, innovation or stability. It may be bad for us in the long run that Infineon is going out of business. As I understand it, the market is dominated by four major players. Will there be three now? Will it eventually become even more of a monopoly? I hope not. It would be to our detriment.

    Off topic - I wonder when DDR2 is going to ramp up to the point where it's actually better than DDR. From what I've seen, the extra latency kills any performance gains it might have with current chipsets and clock speeds.
    • Sorry, you are suggesting that we regluate the RAM market?!

      The fact of the matter over the last 5 years, RAM prices have dropped and sizes have went through the roof. There is no reason _not_ to expect this to continue.

      CPUs are made by 2 main companies, yet innovation and price drops are very frequent. RAM has 3, so it's even more competitive if you use that logic.
      • The market had a peak in the first half of the year, and memory is only now back to where it was this time last year.

        This chart [macseek.com] shows March-December 2004 price levels for 256 meg of PC 2700 DDR. March: $42, June $46, July-November: $38-$40, December: $35. That 5% trading range for 5 months probably postponed a number of purchases. In contrast [macseek.com] that same memory was trading in $36-$41 last holiday season.

        PC2100 DDR shows a similar trend in 2003 [macseek.com] and 2004 [macseek.com].

        More statistics here [macseek.com]. Note - if the mouse won't
    • It was already prooven that DDR2 would not be better then DDR until speeds reached a minimum of 800 Mhz or higher on the FSB. The real difference will be felt at around 1.2 Ghz, which DDR2 can reach, but Intel being Intel (and not actually thinking out tech changes, but believing they can force it down their customers no matter if it is no better then other techs out and more expensive, think RDRAM), has decided to not actually release a chipset to use DDR2 at faster speeds until mid to late 2005. By which

    • Yes, I'd like to get cheap RAM, but not at the expense of quality, innovation or stability.

      Somehow I don't think price fixing will bolster quality and innovation. And I don't see stability in itself as a good.

      As I understand it, the market is dominated by four major players. Will there be three now? Will it eventually become even more of a monopoly? I hope not. It would be to our detriment.

      That's no reason to allow price fixing. Id argue price fixing is a form of monopoly, since all the producers a

  • Still a lot of bad business out there (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SwedeGeek ( 545209 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @09:26AM (#10995823) Homepage Journal

    Anyone think the Infineon execs will take this as badly as the CEO of CyberNET (see this article [mlive.com])??

    It somewhat still amazes me that these people think because they are supposedly good at business that they are going to be good at breaking the law. At what point does making an amazingly fat paycheck stop a person from wanting more? As incidences like these continue to happen, I get closer and closer to believing it never ends... and that's not even mentioning the big ones like Enron and MCI.

    Here's a vote to salary caps in the corporate world!!!

  • "Infineon has taken aggressive steps to clarify compliance requirements with the US anti-trust law."
    But will it reduce the price of RAM?

  • Profiting? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by heller ( 4484 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @10:28AM (#10995961) Homepage
    See, what confuses me is that other felons aren't allowed to profit from their felonies. That's why drug dealer's houses and cars and boats are taken away. But, these execs still get to keep what they earned during the time they were committing their felonies (minus the 3 months pay they're being fined). I guess it's just more proof that crime does pay.
  • Rob a bank and you get 25 years. Steal millions and get 6 months. :/

  • Troublemakers (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
    This is outrageous! Yet another government interference in the free market. When will these all-knowing politicians keep their noses out of commerce, so economics can generate efficiencies, and customers can get on with our vendors in peace? These damn commies in Washington are going to force any capitalists out of the RAM business. Why don't they just go back to lawyering, and leave business and technology to the experts?

    • Re:Troublemakers (Score:2, Informative)

      by BattleTroll ( 561035 )
      What the hell are you on about? Free market does not mean 'companies are free to do what ever the hell they want'!

      The company was found guilty of price fixing, an anti-free market practice. The whole idea behind a free market is that supply and demand have a huge influence over pricing. If you allow companies to conspire to set prices across the board, any power the consumer had to influence prices goes out the window.

      Imagine, if you will, large midwestern agriculture company conspires with world markets
      • I was confused by your ignorance of irony, Battle Troll , until I read your .sig. Then I understood your ignorance of irony.
    • Sarcasm is "Flamebait". Welcome to Oceania, 1984.
  • This is a drop in the bucket, an ice cube next to an ice burg, compared to price fixing by the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft's monopoly abuse, etc. What about Enron goddammit?

    What a fucking joke. Martha Stewart gets busted for selling $150,000 worth of stock on an insider tip, when she's got BILLIONS, and these guys get "busted", but the real perps with friends in high places get a free ride.

    How many people did these guys, and Martha too, actually really hurt? RAM is still pretty cheap, AFAIK Martha wasn't f

  • That whole thing stinks. While US Company Rambus gets off the hook with all its shenanigans (which cost the industry and consumers billions) apparently people working in Germany now get made an example of.

    Disgusting. And, while we are at it - what happend to "no taxation without representation" ? What do you bet US company Micron will not get harmed in this at all, while all the others will take hefty fines ?

  • It's still a scam, just differnet players. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pherris ( 314792 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @01:14PM (#10996619) Homepage Journal
    Ok, so Schaefer and Corwin have to pay 250k each and the company pays $160m to the US Govt. Like all these fines the US Govt. collects does any of it make it back to those that got burnt over the years? The company I work for buys a over a million a year in DRAM chips so we're been hit by this price fixing. Do we get anything? Of course the answer is no.

    I think companies should be punished for theft and price fixing but I have a problem when the US Govt. just dumps those fines back their coffers (or for tax breaks for the rich instead of reducing the general deficit).

    IMO it's still a scam and the general public is still getting screwed.

  • Price fixing is the norm in the industry. Especially if you own a monopoly in say operating systems and Office suites.

    You do not see the government go after them do you? Oh wait its because we need to defend innovation and capitalism.

  • The US$160 million doesn't seem like so much coming right on the heels of the ProMOS settlement [digitimes.com].

  • How Dare They?!?!?!?! (Score:4, Funny)

    by DarkMantle ( 784415 ) on Saturday December 04, 2004 @03:31PM (#10997297) Homepage
    I'm outraged!!! I'm going to stop using Infenion RAM right now!

    **Pulls RAM Out**

    oops... shoulda shutdown first.
  • It would seem to me that in order to illegally fix prices there would have to be a collusion of all the memory chip makers. How come only the german one is punished?

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