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Rombyte fined £16K for flogging fake DRAM

False Memory Syndrome

Newbury memory distributor Rombyte has been fined £16,000 for selling counterfeit memory.

At a hearing at Reading Crown Court last Friday (August 1), judge Mr Recorder Moylam also ordered Rombyte to pay costs.

Rombyte directors Andrew Jones, Jazz Dhillon and Patrick John Shaw Rombyte pleaded guilty to eight counts of supplying counterfeit memory modules at a hearing before Newbury Magistrates in May this year.

The case follows a raid by officers from West Berkshire Trading Standards on Rombyte in May 2002.

In October, Rombyte made a contractually binding arrangement with Hynix to "cease and desist from importing and marketing counterfeit memory chips stamped with the Hynix brand name but not manufactured or marketed by Hynix".

First Choice Components Ltd, which was also accused of importing "Hynix" re-marks from Taiwan made a similar undertaking.

In return for furnishing Hynix with its list of the suppliers of the faked products and destroying its remaining supplies, the manufacturer agreed not to instigate a civil suit.

That still left Rombyte with a prosecution against it by its local council's trading standards department. But Rombyte's settlement with Hynix worked in it favour and appears to have persuaded Mr Recorder Moylam to levy a relatively light fine on the company. ®

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