Transnational Antitrust—Banner Year

It has been a productive year for the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice. Last week, the AD announced that the President of Samsung’s US subsidiary, Young Hwan Park, “has agreed to plead guilty, serve jail time in the United States, and pay a fine for participating in a global conspiracy to fix DRAM prices.”^[1] This guilty plea is part of the same conspiracy that we have discussed a number of times.

According to the DOJ, Mr. Park “participated in the price-fixing conspiracy while in his capacity as Vice President of Sales at … Samsung Electronics Company Ltd.”^[2] He has agreed to serve 10 months in prison and pay a criminal fine of $250,000, as well as agreeing to assist the government in its ongoing investigation.^[3]

Mr. Park’s criminal fine will be added to the tally for next year, and the Antitrust Division is able to boast that, in the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2006, the division has racked up the second-highest level of criminal fines.^[4] For this period, the AD has obtained criminal fines totaling $473,445,600 (the vast majority coming from Samsung’s $300 million fine), “representing a 40 percent increase over FY 2005,” and it has filed 33 criminal cases, many of which involve multiple defendants.^[5] Jail time appears to be on the increase, as well. In FY 2006, 5,383 jail days have been imposed, and “as of Dec. 15, 2006, only a few months into FY 2007, the Division has already obtained sentences totaling 9,135 days of jail time.”^[6]

In FY 2002, the AD secured $75 million in criminal fines, $107 million in 2003, $350 million in 2004, and $338 million in 2005.^[7] Already in FY 2007, there have been $512,000 in fines.^[8] In 1999, “over $850 million in fines was imposed on members of the vitamins cartel, including a record $500 million fine imposed on F. Hoffmann-LaRoche, Ltd., and a $225 million fine imposed on BASF AG.”^[9]

In addition to the high level of criminal fines, the AD has challenged more mergers “than the previous two years combined.”^[10] For FY 2006, premerger transaction filings increased 8.9 percent over FY 2005 to 1,860; in this time, the Division “initiated 10 merger enforcement actions, and an additional six transactions were restructured by the parties in response to a Division investigation.”^[11]

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[1] Samsung Korean Executive Agrees to Plead Guilty, Server Jail Time for Participating in DRAM Price-Fixing Conspiracy, US DOJ, Dec. 21, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Antitrust Division Ends the Year with Second-Highest Level of Criminal Fines, More Merger Challenges, US DOJ, Dec. 21, 2006.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Criminal Antitrust Fines, US DOJ, Dec. 21, 2006.
[8] Id.
[9] Antitrust Enforcement and the Consumer, US DOJ, last visited Dec. 27, 2006.
[10] US DOJ, supra note 4.
[11] Id.