Late last week Samsung joined its competitors in paying hundreds of millions in fines as part of the company's guilty plea in a U.S. Justice Department investigation into price fixing in the $7.7 billion flash memory market. The Justice Department also indicated that the verdict does not shield Samsug from further prosecution and did not rule out the possibility of future criminal charges against company executives.

In other bad news for Samsung, prosecutors in Korea are tracing the bank accounts of the four children of Samsung president president Lee Kun-hee in relation to an ongoing investigation into sales of convertible bonds in Samsung Everland, a holding company asnd amusement par operator. Two Samsung executives have previously been convicted in the probe.

Prosecutors aledge that the heirs of Samsung president Lee Kun-hee recieved shares in Everland at well below market prices engendering a huge loss to the holding company. Officials are interested in determining whether Lee directed the stock transactions in an effort to circumvent inheritance taxes.

-- MDT

Labels: Department of Justice