(Wilmington): On Friday, July 14, Attorney General Carl C. Danberg filed a lawsuit against seven computer memory chip manufacturers alleging the firms violated antitrust laws by conspiring to fix prices they charged for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. DRAM is a widely used form of computer memory that is found in personal computers, servers and other electronic devices.

Delaware and 33 other states filed the lawsuit on Friday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The defendants in the lawsuit include Elpida, Hynix, Infineon, Micron, Mosel-Vitelic, Nanya, and NEC.

In June 2002, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into what officials have called “one of the largest cartels ever discovered.” Micron agreed to cooperate with investigators in exchange for amnesty from federal criminal charges. Several defendants and twelve individuals have since pleaded guilty to criminal price-fixing and collectively paid more than $730 million in fines.

The states’ complaint lays out details of the conspiracy, including an agreement by industry leaders to trim production in order to artificially raise prices. In this case, the Attorney General is representing Delaware’s state and local governmental entities that purchased DRAM and DRAM containing products affected by the alleged DRAM price-fixing conspiracy.

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