SanDisk subpoenaed over U.S. antitrust issues

NEW YORK/TORONTO (Reuters) - SanDisk Corp (SNDK.O) said the company and its chief executive have received grand jury subpoenas from a U.S. district court indicating a Department of Justice probe into possible price-fixing in the NAND flash memory industry.

In a regulatory filing on Friday, SanDisk said the subpoenas served to itself and CEO Eli Harari came after the company was sued last month in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California in a case alleging price-fixing of flash memory.

The filing said 23 other companies were also sued for the same reason.

NAND flash memory is used mainly in digital cameras and music players such as Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPod.

SanDisk said it also received notice from the Canadian Competition Bureau, which has begun an industry-wide probe into alleged anti-competitive activity among suppliers of NAND flash memory chips to Canada.

John Pecman, assistant deputy commissioner at the criminal matters branch of the Competition Bureau, confirmed in an interview on Friday that the bureau had an active investigation into "an alleged conspiracy relating to the supply of flash memory."

He said the bureau had sent out letters to target companies asking them to preserve any evidence that could relate to the investigation.

Pecman would not provide details on the alleged conduct, or say when the investigation began and how many companies were involved.

"I can confirm that it relates to price," he said.

In Washington, a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed that the department's antitrust division was "investigating the possibility of anticompetitive practices in the flash memory industry."

SanDisk said it intended to cooperate in the investigations.

Shares of SanDisk rose $1.30 or 2.6 percent, to close at $51.29 on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Wojtek Dabrowski in Toronto, Franklin Paul in New York and Jennifer Robin Raj in Bangalore)