Four Infineon Execs Face Jail in US

Three German executives and an American with German microchip giant Infineon Technologies face jail terms and fines under plea agreements to settle a US probe into

price-fixing, the Justice Department said Thursday. The plea agreements were the latest developments in a US investigation into price-fixing of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, a widely used semiconductor memory product for computers, mobile phones, music players and other electronic devices. A Justice Department statement cited plea agreements with three German executives -- Heinrich Florian, Günter Hefner and Peter Schäfer -- who agreed to six, five and four months in prison respectively. T. Rudd Corwin, a US citizen, agreed to a four-month prison sentence. Each of the four also agreed to pay a $250,000 (€187,400) fine. The four Infineon executives were charged with participating with co-conspirators in "a conspiracy" with other unnamed firms to fix prices between 1999 and 2002. On Oct. 20, the company pleaded guilty to a charge of participating in the same conspiracy and was ordered to pay a $160 million criminal fine -- the third largest fine in antitrust history. Officials said the probe was continuing.