SRAM Direct Purchasers Reach $25M In Settlements

By Richard Vanderford

Law360, New York (January 22, 2010) -- Micron Technology Inc., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., NEC Electronics and several other defendants in the ongoing static random access memory multidistrict litigation have agreed to settle the direct purchasers' price-fixing claims against them for a combined $25 million.

News of the settlements came out in a plaintiff's motion for approval, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs in the MDL allege that semiconductor companies conspired to fix SRAM prices between 1996 and 2006.

The settlements, which also include defendants Hynix Semiconductor Inc., Etron Technology Inc. and Integrated Silicon Solution Inc., were reached separately after years of litigation gave way to months of negotiation, according to the motion.

The defendants did not admit wrongdoing and maintained that they had meritorious defenses to the claims.

After failing at several attempts to toss the case, the settling defendants began negotiations as far back as 2008. Micron, which began negotiating in July 2008, settled first, in March 2009.

More defendants began negotiations after the plaintiffs won class certification in September 2008, with the most recent agreement, with ISSI, coming in October 2009, after eight months of negotiation.

Renesas Technology Corp., which negotiated on behalf of itself, Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi, will pay the most out of the settling defendants: $9.98 million. NEC settled for $8.1 million, Hynix for $3.32 million, Micron for $3.1 million, Etron for $400,000 and ISSI for $125,000, according to the motion.

As part of the agreement, the settling companies also agreed to assist in the prosecution of the remaining defendants — Cypress Semiconductor Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and their subsidiaries.

Among the plaintiffs in the direct purchaser class are the world's largest computer manufacturers, such as Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Dell Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., as well as computer equipment manufacturers like Cisco Systems Inc. and cell phone makers including Motorola Inc. and Ericsson.

The SRAM antitrust MDL was consolidated in March 2007, when at least 42 separate SRAM cases in various jurisdictions were diverted to the Northern District of California.

Class actions against SRAM manufacturers started pouring into courts all over the U.S. after Cypress, the world's second-largest producer of SRAM chips, disclosed in October 2006 that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating possible collusion in the market.

SRAM is a type of semiconductor memory that is used to speed up the performance of microprocessors in small computing tasks. Companies make SRAM for a variety of applications, including memory caches on computer motherboards, cell phones and game consoles.

The direct purchaser class is represented by Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy.

McDermott Will & Emery LLP represents Renesas, Hitachi and Mitsubishi in this matter.

O'Melveny & Myers LLP represents Hynix in this matter.

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP represents Micron in this matter.

Winston & Strawn LLP represents NEC in this matter.

White & Case LLP represents Etron in this matter.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati represents ISSI in this matter.

The case is In re: Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) Antitrust Litigation, case number 07-cv-01819, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

--Additional reporting by Brendan Pierson