Samsung, SK Hynix sued in US over alleged memory price collusion

A class-action lawsuit has been filed in California against major memory chip manufacturers Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron by 14 U.S. consumers and three small-to-medium computer distributors. The plaintiffs accuse the companies of conspiring to artificially increase prices for consumer DRAM, thereby driving up the cost of finished electronic products such as Apple MacBooks and iPads.

The lawsuit claims that these memory makers, holding approximately 90% of the market share, exploited their dominant position for financial gain. It further alleges that the companies intentionally created a "supply shortage" by prioritizing production of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for artificial intelligence applications over older DRAM types like DDR4. This strategic shift, the plaintiffs argue, led to a 700% surge in consumer memory prices over the past year.

As evidence of a "pattern of collusion," the lawsuit points to a previous instance where Samsung and SK Hynix (then known as Hynix Semiconductor) paid $300 million and $185 million respectively in fines to the U.S. Department of Justice for DRAM price-fixing between 1999 and 2002. The current legal action seeks damages on behalf of consumers and businesses who purchased products containing standard DRAM during the recent period of soaring memory prices.