Brazil: Cade condemns memory chips cartel

During the hearing held on last November 23rd, the Tribunal of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense – CADE condemned the companies Elpida Memory, Mitsubishi Electric, Nanya Technology Corporation, NEC Corporation and Toshiba Corporation, beyond two individuals, for cartel formation in the international market of Dynamic Random Access Memory – DRAM. The fines imposed sum up to BRL 7 million (Administrative Proceeding 08012.005255/2010-11).

The cartel in the DRAM market was also investigated in other jurisdictions. Several participants of the cartel agreed to plead guilty to participating in a global conspiracy to manipulate DRAM market to US and EU antitrust authorities. They also agreed to pay high fines and to assist prosecutors in the investigation.

Besides, cartel participants faced several claims of compensation regarding damage recovering. In the United States, for example, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric and Toshiba payed more than US$ 27 million to settle private lawsuits over DRAM conspiracy.

The Dynamic Random Access Memory are used in personal computers – as PCs, notebooks and laptops –, workstations, mainframes, calculators, GPS devices, game consoles, digital recorders, printing machines and scanners, among other pieces of equipment.

The DRAM cartel affected Brazil and harmed companies that bought DRAM from the parties involved in the cartel as well as final consumers of goods that used DRAM chips in their manufacturing process. The collusion harmed Brazilian and foreign consumers at least between 1998 e 2002.

Full Content: CADE

Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world.