Four vice-presidents at memory giant Infineon Technologies are going to jail for their involvement in the industry's largest price-fixing scam during 2001 and 2002.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ), which has been investigating a number of the major DRam players, announced that the four senior executives entered a plea bargain to pay $250,000 each and serve between four and six months in prison.

This is the first time prison sentences have been handed out in the two-and-half-year investigation, and they may not be the last, as the DoJ continues to investigate Samsung, Micron and Hynix.

Heinrich Florian, Gunter Hefner, Peter Schaefer and T Rudd Corwin were found guilty of participating in a conspiracy to fix the prices of DRam sold to certain computer and server manufacturers.

"These executives are the first to plead guilty to a charge of fixing prices in what is still a very active and far-reaching investigation into antitrust violations in the DRam industry," said Scott Hammond, the antitrust division's director of criminal enforcement at the DoJ.

"We will continue in our efforts to bring to justice other domestic and foreign-based executives who were involved with fixing DRam prices."

R Hewett Pate, assistant attorney general in charge of the DoJ's antitrust division, said: "True deterrence occurs when individuals serve jail terms, and not just when corporations pay substantial criminal fines."

In October, Infineon pleaded guilty to a charge of participating in the same conspiracy and was sentenced to pay a $160m criminal fine.

Paul Stevens, integration business unit manager at distributor Memory Plus, applauded the sentences.

"I think it's a good thing that someone goes to jail for it," said Stevens. "It acts as a warning to others and should prevent any more cartels forming. I expect we will see more decisions like this."

According to Infineon, two of the four guilty employees have left the company, while the other two are currently in non-sales positions. Those companies found guilty by the DoJ are also expected to be hit hard by financial claims from the hardware manufacturers caught up in the DRam pricing scandal.

The list currently includes IBM, Dell, Gateway, Apple and Hewlett-Packard.

crn@vnu.co.uk