Top Japanese firms settle DRAM dispute with US clients
03 Apr 2010
Japanese maker of home appliances and railroad equipment Hitachi Ltd., biggest memory-chip maker Toshiba Corp., and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. agreed to pay $27.8 million to settle claims they conspired to fix prices for memory chips, the China Post daily reported today.
According to filings in federal court in San Francisco, Hitachi will pay $11.5 million, Toshiba to pay $9.2 million, and Mitsubishi Electric will pay $7.1 million to resolve lawsuits by direct purchasers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, which are used in computers, mobile phones and other electronics.
The buyers claim the manufacturers overcharged US customers from 1999 to 2002.
Manufacturers of DRAM, were sued on behalf of consumers, systems integrators and computer distributors following a 2002 US Justice Department probe into a global price-fixing conspiracy.
The investigation led to claims against four companies and at least 16 people, and fines totaling $732.7 million, according to the agency.
Other chipmakers have already agreed to pay $326 million to settle price-fixing claims by direct purchasers of DRAM.
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