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WASHINGTON (CNN) -
Samsung Electronics Company and its U.S. subsidiary have agreed to plead guilty for participating in an international conspiracy to fix prices in the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market, the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday.
Samsung, a Korean manufacturer, agreed to pay $300 million in fines, the second largest criminal antitrust fine in U.S. history.
A one-count felony charge filed in San Francisco said Samsung conspired with other manufacturers to fix prices sold to certain computer manufacturers. The computer makers directly affected by the price-fixing conspiracy were Dell (up $0.24 to $32.89, Research), Compaq, Hewlett-Packard (down $0.14 to $27.16, Research), Apple (up $3.15 to $52.40, Research), IBM (up $0.14 to $82.33, Research) and Gateway (up $0.08 to $2.58, Research).
Prosecutors said the conspiracy occurred between April 1999 and June 2002.
DRAM is used in personal computers, laptops, work stations, servers, printers, hard disk drives, digital cameras and other digital equipment.
-- from CNN Producer Terry Frieden
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