April 26, 2007 – South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission says it has dropped its domestic probe into possible impacts from alleged price-fixing by memory firms Samsung, Hynix, Micron, and Infineon, an investigation stemming from the US government’s action against the chipmakers.

The Associated Press notes that the probe, investigating the chipmakers’ activities from 1999-2002, determined that it was hard to prove whether the companies’ wrongdoing had actually extended into their business practices in Korea. “The commission was not able to clearly determine only from the evidence it gathered whether the South Korean market was subject to their collusion or whether their acts directly affected the South Korean market,” said the commission, in a statement.

The commission noted, though, that dropping the case was not a verdict of innocence, merely that the available evidence was insufficient to prove wrongdoing. “The decision is different from an acquittal in which the reviewees’ acts are determined to have not violated the fair trade law,” it said.