Tech Shout!

On Thursday, New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer sued leading makers of memory chips, claiming that they made secret price-fixing arrangements that inflated the cost of personal computers, as well as other electronic devices. More than 30 other states in the U.S were expected to file a separate, but similar lawsuit against chipmakers on Friday following this.

The New York lawsuit was filed in Manhattan fedral court and claims the companies fixed prices on dynamic random access memory chips from 1998 until 2002, also known as DRAM chips. The defendants in this case are Micron, Samsung, Infineon, Elpida, Hynix, Mosel-Vitelic Corp., Nanya Technology Corp. and NEC Electronics America Inc.

Boise, Idaho-based Micron Technology Inc. was granted immunity from criminal charges in the DOJ case, in exchange for its cooperation in the case. The lawsuits follow a long-running U.S. Justice Department investigation that has resulted in more than $730 million in fines and guilty pleas from four companies namely, Samsung Electronics Co., Elpida Memory Inc., Infineon Technologies AG and Hynix Semiconductor Inc.

“I have never seen a price-fixing case where there is so widespread, so continuous an exchange of confidential price information among competitors or over so long a time period,” said Assistant New York Attorney General Richard Schwartz.