Nevada to get piece of case settlement
Nevada is one of 33 states that will get a piece of a $173 million settlement involving a price fixing-conspiracy performed by six international manufacturers of dynamic random access memory computer chips.
Manufacturers Micron Technology Inc. and NEC Electronics America Inc. of the United States; Infineon Technologies A.G. of Germany; Hynix Semiconductor Inc. of South Korea; Elpida Memory Inc. of Japan; and Mosel-Vitelic Corp. of Taiwan are named in the lawsuit.
The six companies will pay the settlement over two years to the states and private class action plaintiffs. Nevada's share of the settlement will be determined later, the office said.
After an investigation in July 2006, the office said, Nevada and other states sued the chipmakers, alleging that Nevada's consumers, state agencies, and local governments overpaid for products containing DRAM chips, which are in desktop and laptop computers, servers, printers and networking equipment.
An investigation revealed that from 1998 to 2002, the companies' salespeople and managers traded confidential information and agreed to quote inflated DRAM prices to customers.
Other states in the settlement are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
