AI BriefingSamsung, SK, Micron Face DRAM Price-Fixing Lawsuit
Key point
The three memory makers have been sued on claims that expanding HBM production to meet AI demand led to restricted supply and higher prices for consumer DRAM.
Details
On June 25, 2026, 17 plaintiffs (14 consumers and 3 small businesses) filed a class-action lawsuit against Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and Micron in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit alleges violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
The key issues are as follows:
- Supply Restriction and Price Increases: The claim is that the three memory makers deliberately restricted the supply of consumer memory, raising prices by approximately 700% over the past four years.
- Production Shift to HBM: The allegation is that while increasing production of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), a high-margin product sold to AI data centers and GPU manufacturers, the companies used this as a pretext to cut production of conventional consumer DRAM such as DDR3 and DDR4, disrupting the market.
Micron has flatly denied the allegations and signaled it will mount a legal defense. There is a precedent from 2005, when the companies were found guilty of memory price-fixing, but a similar lawsuit in 2018 was dismissed for insufficient evidence, so whether this lawsuit will actually hold up remains to be determined through the legal process ahead.
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