Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are being sued for alleged DRAM price fixing and collusion

Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology are being sued in federal court for alleged collusion and price-fixing in the memory market. The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California, alleging that these three companies have deliberately engineered DRAM scarcity in the consumer and commercial markets to inflate prices.

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If you've been following recent news about Apple, Xbox, and other companies increasing the cost of their consumer-facing technology products due to the rapid, exponential rise in memory (and flash storage) prices, you might be nodding in agreement. The current situation, born of the memory crisis, is that consumer technology pricing will continue to rise with no real end in sight. Lenovo is calling it the "new normal" and that this trend is set to continue through 2030.

As the three big players in the memory space, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology have all transitioned their manufacturing and production capacities to producing High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), specifically for the booming AI and data center markets. And with that, the lawsuit claims that production of legacy technologies like DDR3 and DDR4 has been wound down to pursue higher profits. And with demand for commodity DRAM still there, prices have increased by around 700% over four years. The lawsuit even references the name many have given the situation: the "RAMpocalypse."

Now, although high prices and DRAM scarcity are a fact, for the lawsuit to succeed, it would need to prove that collusion and price-fixing have led to the current situation. On that note, the lawsuit cites precedent and history. In the 2000s, Samsung and SK Hynix pled guilty to price-fixing charges, with the US Department of Justice imposing $731 million in fines and prison sentences for executives at the companies.

If nothing else, this class action lawsuit filed by 7 plaintiffs on June 25 shines a light on one of the biggest issues and pain points in the consumer technology market, which encompasses everything from smartphones and tablets to laptops, desktop PCs, gaming consoles, and more.

Given the DRAM crisis, why haven't companies like Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology been forced to allocate production capacity to consumer DRAM products such as DDR4 and DDR5 at fixed, regulated price points to stimulate sales? Instead, Micron can shutter its profitable, massive consumer- and OEM-facing Crucial brand as everyone pivots to HBM and everything AI. And now, per the latest reporting from firms like Jefferies, Q3 2026 will see memory pricing increase by another 40-50 percent, followed by another 30-40 percent in Q4.