RAM Manufacturers Face Class Action Lawsuit for Alleged Price Fixing and Limiting Supply - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 July 2026 / 6,230 Views
A class action lawsuit has been filed in California against the three largest RAM manufacturers in the world - Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron - for allegedly fixing the price and supply of memory.
The lawsuit accuses the three companies of working together in order to significantly raise the price of memory, while reducing the supply. They are accused of limiting supply of DDR3 and DDR4 RAM, while focusing most if its production on HBM, a higher-cost DRAM that is mainly used in AI datacenters.
"The DRAM oligopolists have simultaneously cut production, coordinated a pivot to HBM and exit from DDR3 and DDR4, and otherwise decreased and locked up conventional DRAM supply while prices charged up with mind-blowing scale and rapidity," reads the lawsuit.
It adds, "Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron continued to squeeze conventional DRAM supply, simultaneously and publicly directing their resources toward less-profitable-per-die HBM – or in some cases, simply junking conventional DRAM supply channels altogether."
"Consumer purchasers of conventional DRAM and devices incorporating it have paid supracompetitive prices and have otherwise suffered the impacts of a distorted market crippled by the behavior of DRAM oligopolists."
The lawsuit claims the three companies have worked together to control the supply of DRAM and are unable to realistically be challenged by anyone else due to the cost of building one DRAM fabrication plant can be $10 billion or higher and takes years to complete.
Even if a company were to try to challenge the three, the process does "comprise decades of accumulated trade secrets" and the US bars the "only other procedures, in China, from acquiring current-generation equipment."
"The practical consequence is that when the three firms restrict supply, no outsider can expand output to undercut them," claims the lawsuit.
This isn't the first time Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron were found guilty of price fixing DRAM. Samsung pled guilty in 2005 and paid a $300 million fine, while Hynix paid a $185 million fine. Micron reportedly avoided a fine by reporting the incident and working with prosecutors. All three were also investigated by the Chinese government when prices spiked from 2016 to 2018.
The higher prices of memory and storage have caused the price of video game hardware and other electronic products to increase over the past year.
Xbox is increasing the price for a third time since May 2025 in August with the cheapest model - Xbox Series S - going from $300 before any increases up to $500, while the Xbox Series X will hit $800.
Sony has increased the price of the PlayStation 5 multiple times as well with the Digital Edition going from $400 at launch up to $600 now, while the model with a disc drive has gone from $500 to $650. The PS5 Pro has increased from $700 to $900.
Nintendo is increasing the price of the Nintendo Switch 2 worldwide on September 1 from $450 to $500, while the price has already increased in Japan. The price of the Switch 1 increased in August 2025 with the Lite going from $200 to $230, the original model from $300 to $340, and the OLED from $350 to $400.
Thanks, Law360.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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I would be surprised what the evidence is, I bet there isn't any.
Some of those companies have already faced investigation for agreeing to artificially inflate prices back in the early 2000s, so I guess it's the same, all of the few of them raising prices up to 700% from just a few years ago does sound like there is potential interest to be under investigation.
i agree, these companies know they are being watched
Wouldn't surprise me if it was true.
Honestly, a level of collusion looks likely to me.
Wouldn't be surprised if this was at least partially part of the pricing issue...
Sadly this sounds like it will fail. Nothing about actual collaboration, just assumptions that DDR should be entirely prioritized vs HBM. HBM isn´t clearly worse based on profit/wafer, which might have once been true but no longer is... And how would HBM profitability go UP just by producers shifting production into low profit sector? The missing point is that the HBM customers are willing to do big contracts, so there is no conspiracy needed for many companies to shift more and more production to HBM.
Of course, that doesn´t mean this is a good situation, but it´s not clear that the framework on class action lawsuit in the US on basis on price fixing, or even what people are commenting about (a real regulator anti-cartel enforcement), are appropriate venues.
I still don't understand how one company was able to purchase like half of all supply. its just absurd.
It’s my memory and I want it now!!!
Probably won't work but I'm glad somebody is taking it seriously at least. If nothing else they'll be glad to take this opportunity to keep prices high for the future.
Console manufacturers should also be investigated.
Reducing production, isn't that what is needed to save the Planet?
It's a complex issue because realistically 80 % of the western world is guilty of over-consumerism, buying things we don't need, upgrading when we don't need and throwing out things that still work perfectly fine, particularly phones and technology, but the problem is it's the demand that has to go down, not the supply because ironically that just makes people want a thing all the more as we've seen with RAM and many other things. We need both consumers and companies to learn the concept of "enough", which seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.
Just today I read news of SK Hynix and Samsung, I think, increasing production capacity, so this is probably not exactly going to go well. I doubt it was ever going to go well though, but at the same time, I certainly don't mind the situation being investigated.
