Dramurai wriggle off the hook in South Korea

ANTI-TRUST investigators in South Korea have dropped an investigation against chip makers Samsung, Hynix Semiconductor, Micron and Infineon.

According to AP, there was not enough evidence that the four had violated the country's fair trade law.

The probe stemmed from a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that found the companies engaged in price fixing in the United States for dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips from April 1999 until June 2002.

However the Koreans could not prove the whether the South Korean market was subject to their collusion or whether their acts directly affected the South Korean market. Samsung, Infineon, Hynix as well as Japan's Elpida Memory have pleaded guilty in the United States for their roles in the price-fixing scheme and were ordered to pay about US$729 million (€534 million) in fines.

More here. µ