DRAM Price-Fixing Suit
Lawsuit Accuses Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron of 700% DRAM Price Fixing Since 2022
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Key Points
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Historical antitrust actions in the DRAM market include Samsung and SK Hynix being fined millions for price-fixing, with Infineon, NEC, and Toshiba also penalized for collusion dating back to 1998.
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The plaintiffs allege the supply manipulation dates to 2022, when demand fell and manufacturers shifted resources toward High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI, while gradually discontinuing DDR3 and DDR4.
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The case is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and is overseen by Judge Noel Wise, marking a high-profile antitrust action in a federal court.
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The plaintiffs are represented by Bathaee Dunne, an antitrust law firm that previously secured a victory in Google's digital advertising antitrust case.
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The suit includes 14 individual claimants and 3 small businesses; if certified as a class action, it could cover all general consumers and businesses that purchased products containing DRAM, potentially tripling damages if the plaintiffs prevail.
Three of the world's largest memory chip makers — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron — are facing a federal antitrust lawsuit that accuses them of rigging RAM prices. The suit, filed June 25, 2026, in a California federal court, claims the companies drove prices up by roughly 700% over four years by deliberately strangling supply of standard consumer memory, according to VideoCardz and TrendForce.
The three companies together control more than 90% of the global DRAM market. The complaint argues they used the AI boom as cover to shift production away from everyday RAM — the kind inside laptops, phones, and PCs — while leaving consumers and small businesses to pay inflated prices.
How the AI Pivot Allegedly Squeezed Consumer RAM
Starting around 2022, demand for consumer electronics cooled sharply. Instead of boosting supply to compete for customers, all three manufacturers did the opposite. The complaint says they shifted factory capacity toward High-Bandwidth Memory, or HBM — a premium chip used in AI servers made by companies like NVIDIA. They also began phasing out older DDR3 and DDR4 production lines, according to Games Industry.
Plaintiffs say a truly competitive market would have seen at least one company break ranks and ramp up production to grab market share. None did. By early 2026, some standard RAM modules were trading at seven times their 2022 lows. The complaint calls this "artificial scarcity" — a shortage engineered for profit, not driven by real demand, as reported by GameDev.net.
A History of DRAM Price-Fixing Backs the Allegations
This is not the first time these companies have faced price-fixing charges. In the early 2000s, the U.S. Department of Justice fined Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, and others a combined $731 million for coordinating DRAM prices. Samsung alone paid $300 million. Hynix paid $185 million. Infineon, NEC, and Toshiba were also penalized for collusion dating back to 1998, according to WN Hub.
A similar class-action suit was filed in 2018, also alleging supply restrictions between 2016 and 2017. That case struggled to prove a direct agreement between the firms. Plaintiffs in the new suit say this time the evidence of coordinated behavior — what lawyers call "plus factors" — is stronger and more specific.
Who Is Suing, and What They Could Win
The case is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and is assigned to Judge Noel Wise. The 14 named individual plaintiffs and 3 small businesses are represented by Bathaee Dunne LLP — an antitrust firm that previously won a major case against Google's digital advertising business, according to Games Industry.
If a judge certifies this as a class action, the lawsuit could cover virtually every U.S. consumer or business that bought a laptop, smartphone, or server since 2022 — potentially hundreds of millions of people. Under U.S. antitrust law, winners can receive triple their actual damages. That could push the total payout into the tens of billions of dollars, according to TrendForce.
Skeptics Say the Market, Not a Cartel, Drove Prices Up
Not everyone sees a conspiracy. Some economists argue that the shift to HBM was a rational business decision. AI chip makers offer far higher profit margins than consumer RAM buyers. "It's not necessarily a conspiracy; it's a gold rush," one senior industry analyst noted. From this view, high prices are simply the market signaling that more production capacity is needed.
Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have not publicly responded to the lawsuit. Legal experts say the case will likely turn on the discovery phase — specifically whether Judge Wise grants access to internal communications from 2022 and 2023. Building a new DRAM factory costs more than $10 billion, which means no new competitor is likely to enter the market and break the deadlock anytime soon, according to VideoCardz.
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