Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology are being sued by seventeen plaintiffs in the California Northern District Court, who allege that the three tech manufacturers are colluding to artificially increase the price of RAM.
Seventeen individual plaintiffs, including three small businesses, have launched a class action lawsuit in the Northern District of California against the three largest RAM and chip manufacturers in the world: Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology. The plaintiffs allege that the three tech companies are colluding to raise the prices of RAM by keeping supplies artificially low, blaming it all on an AI data center-driven “RAMpocalypse” rather than corporate policy.
The Garciaguirre et al v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al case was filed earlier this week, on June 25, in the California Northern District Court, and lists three small computer retailers, Troy’s Computers LLC, JB Tech Solutions LLC, and WNTD Fab LLC, among its seventeen plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs claim that Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology are essentially part of a cartel that is collaborating to inflate DRAM and chip prices by controlling the overwhelming majority of the market. While proving that will obviously be a lot harder than alleging it, it’s no secret that the three companies own roughly 90 percent of the DRAM market.
And it’s no secret that Samsung and SK Hynix have been previously indicted for doing exactly what the plaintiffs are accusing them of doing now. In 2005, two Samsung executives and one Hynix America executive were indicted by a San Francisco jury for DRAM price-fixing and “bid-rigging.”
Bid-rigging can take many forms, but in this example, Samsung and Hynix America were accused of “issuing price quotations in accordance with the agreements reached” during private meetings, and “agreeing during those meetings and telephone conversations to charge prices of DRAM at certain levels to be sold to certain [original equipment manufacturers]” in the United States.
more links: https://wccftech.com/memory-trio-samsung-sk-hynix-micron-face-class-action-lawsuit/
I mean, yeah, of course they are. With that said, they would be absolutely stupid to do so explicitly. If they actually find evidence during discovery, that just means management is dumb as rocks. So… They might.
Grok, how can my buddies and I inflate the prices of our companies’ products to get free money? We need it badly to purchase more kidnapped Asian children. Also, ensure we don’t get caught. Make no mistakes.
you forgot to add “do not hallucinate”!!1!
Thoughts and prayers to the lawfirms to find as much damning evidence as possible!
They’ve been caught before, which would make getting caught a second time even more embarrassing
And me, without any knowledge of this story, I’m going to weigh in with a hunch.
I haven’t read the story. I never heard of the previous story. I read your comment, and thats it.
So…here’s my hunch.
They were caught doing this before, weren’t given any REAL reprocussions. Nothing that would discourage them from keeping at it. They never stopped price fixing, and they just write off any fines for getting caught as the price of doing business.
So. How’d I do? Did I get it 100% right?
Well hold on now.
That’s basically exactly what happened during the RAM cartel of the early 2000’s. I think one guy went to jail for like 6 months, but other than that, yeah.
He also went straight to a similar company in another executive position after he was out. There’s definitely no way he continued to do the exact same thing at the other company he went to. No way at all.
Hey wait, but some executives were jailed the first time. They’re out now of course. And the penalties were a small fraction of the profits. And they’re now working at different but similar companies in executive positions again.
But they totally learned their lessons. Totally.
They’ve only been caught once before but it’s the third time it happens. The market looked identical between 2016 and 2018 (wiki). China also investigated them IIRC
Getting a slap on the wrist is hardly embarrassing. They were only fine 180 million last time around.
It’s not stupid to do things that easy way when you know you won’t get punished
Yes, but I meant that you could get the same results without DMing your buddy “wanna do a crime?”
… Though this frequently happens.
Hey…wanna do a crime?
Have you lost your mind?
I mean…yes?
Why would you bother to hide it if you won’t be punished and you literally have no shame?
The sad thing is companies get away with this now by interfacing with 3rd party algorithmic pricing intelligence companies. It’s a way of laundering collusion behind a machine.
Nobody chasing “AI” as hard as they are isn’t at least as dumb as rocks at a minimum.
To be fair, they aren’t chasing ai as much as selling hardware to the people who are
Nothing much has changed. During the gold rush people who actually made money sold shovels and pickaxes, only very few got rich by actually digging dirt.
Loaning them billions of dollars to do so.