Rambus (RMBS)

[Skeptic]

AP
Rambus Shares Jump on Samsung Disclosure
Tuesday November 29, 2:42 pm ET
Rambus Shares Up After Details From Price-Fixing Case Against Samsung Electronics Are Disclosed


NEW YORK (AP) -- Rambus Inc. shares jumped Tuesday after specific details from the Justice Department's price-fixing case against Samsung Electronics were disclosed.
Shares of Rambus were up 86 cents, or 5.4 percent, at $16.68 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq.

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In October, the Department of Justice announced Samsung agreed to pay a $300 million fine in the antitrust case, but details of the plea remained under wraps. Court documents made public in recent days show Samsung has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to artificially fix prices of DRAM --a type of memory used in consumer electronics -- between April 1, 1999 to June 15, 2002.

Details of the plea were first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Samsung's change of plea hearing and sentencing is scheduled for Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco division.

News of Samsung's admission was welcome to Rambus, a Los Altos, Calif.-based maker of memory interfaces, whose stock has fluctuated wildly based on its legal wranglings. The company has been embroiled for some time in a series of civil suits involving Samsung, Hynix Semiconductor Inc., of South Korea, Micron Technology Inc. and other companies, involving allegations of patent infringement and price fixing.

"We believe this is helpful to our case," Rambus General Counsel John Danforth said. "What's interesting about this, is that one, Samsung expressly admits fixing prices, and two, they admit doing it in a time frame that corresponds with our allegations."

Wall Street analysts were equally enthusiastic by the update.

"This definitely has huge ramifications for Rambus," W.R. Hambrecht analyst Daniel Amir said. "It's not like this is a licensing case or patent infringement -- it's a damages case, and there could be hundreds of millions in Rambus'favor."



Emphasis Added.