Samsung Executives Get US Jail Time

Three Samsung Electronics executives have been sentenced to seven to eight months in jail in the United States for colluding to fix the price of DRAM memory chips.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced yesterday that one Samsung executive confessed to price collusion and was sentenced to eight months in jail. Samsung’s U.S. marketing director and Germany sales director agreed to sentences of seven months in jail each.

The U.S. Department of Justice said that from April 1999 to June 2002, Samsung executives colluded on numerous occasions with other DRAM manufacturers to fix prices and sold the chips, in violation of U.S. law.

Their sentences will be finalized in San Francisco District Court. They will also have to pay an additional fine of $250,000 each.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said, “The law [against unfair business practices] will have a real deterrent effect when the people responsible actually spend time in jail on top of their companies paying fines.”

Soon-Taek Kwon maypole@donga.com