Semiconductor companies under investigation
Investigations have been conducted against several semiconductor companies in the smart card chip sector.
In October 08, the European Commission, competition watchdog of the 27 nation European Union, carried out ‘unannounced inspections’ at the premises of several European smart card chip manufacturers accompanied by members of local antitrust authorities.
STMicorelectronics and Infineon were among the companies under investigation.
A spokesman for STM said: “We did have a visit from the European Commission regarding the investigation, but we understand that this is a very early stage. We haven’t had any complaint following the dawn raids.”
The Commission claims it had reason to believe that the companies concerned may have ‘violated rules prohibiting practices such as price fixing, customer allocation and the exchange of commercially sensitive information’.
