{"slug": "your-ram-price-just-jumped-700-in-4-years-a-new-lawsuit-says-it-was-a-heist", "title": "Your RAM Price Just Jumped 700% in 4 Years. A New Lawsuit Says It Was a Coordinated Heist.", "summary": "A federal lawsuit filed June 25 in California accuses Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology of colluding to fix DRAM prices, causing a 700% price surge since 2022. The complaint alleges the companies coordinated a shift to HBM production to restrict supply of DDR3 and DDR4 memory, violating antitrust laws. Plaintiffs seek treble damages and injunctive relief.", "body_md": "RAM prices have climbed roughly **700%** since 2022, and a new federal lawsuit argues that surge was no accident. [Filed June 25](https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/65375103/Garciaguirre_et_al_v_Samsung_Electronics_Co,_Ltd_et_al) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, *Garciaguirre et al. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al.* alleges Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology — three companies controlling roughly\n\n**90%** of global DRAM revenue — fixed supply and prices for conventional RAM since around 2022. The case has been assigned to Judge Noel Wise, and defendants have not yet responded publicly.\n\n## The AI Pivot as Cover Story\n\n*The lawsuit claims the three chipmakers used the HBM boom to disguise a coordinated squeeze on DDR3 and DDR4 supply.*\n\nThe complaint lays out a specific mechanism:\n\n- All three firms allegedly coordinated a simultaneous pivot toward\n**High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)**— stacked DRAM feeding AI accelerators in data centers — while slashing DDR3 and DDR4 output. - Plaintiffs argue HBM is actually less profitable per die than commodity DRAM, so cutting higher-margin production only makes economic sense if all three competitors do it simultaneously.\n- The suit invokes\n**Section 1 of the Sherman Act**, California’s Cartwright Act, and Minnesota antitrust statutes, seeking treble damages and injunctive relief to restore competitive conditions.\n\n“The DRAM oligopolists have simultaneously cut production, coordinated a pivot to HBM and exit from DDR3 and DDD4, and otherwise decreased and locked up conventional DRAM supply while prices charged up with mind-blowing scale and rapidity.” — [from the complaint](https://dev.ua/en/news/prychyny-ramageddon-1782734489), as reported by VGChartz\n\n[Small repair shops](https://www.polygon.com/ram-manufacturers-sued-supply-price-fixing/) versus three of the world’s most powerful chipmakers — that’s the lineup here. Seventeen plaintiffs, including Troy’s Computers LLC, My Florida PC, JB Tech Solutions LLC, and WNTD Fab LLC, are represented by New York-based **Bathaee Dunne LLP**. Critically, this is civil litigation, not a DOJ criminal probe, so the burden falls squarely on plaintiffs to prove collusion.\n\n## They’ve Done This Before\n\n*The same companies pleaded guilty to criminal DRAM price-fixing two decades ago — and paid hundreds of millions for it.*\n\nThis isn’t the first time these names have appeared in antitrust filings — a pattern that echoes some of the worst [tech scandals](https://www.gadgetreview.com/evil-tech-scandals-failures-that-took-advantage-millions-people) in modern history:\n\n**Samsung** previously pleaded guilty and paid**$300 million** in criminal fines for a late-1990s/early-2000s price-fixing scheme. Several Samsung executives served prison time.**Hynix**— now SK hynix — paid**$185 million**.- European regulators separately fined nine semiconductor firms over\n**€331 million** for the same cartel. **Micron** cooperated with investigators and avoided a fine.\n\nThe new complaint explicitly references this history, arguing alleged collusion is “not unprecedented” in DRAM.\n\nStill, the counterargument deserves a fair hearing. Memory pricing has always been boom-bust — [dramatic swings](https://wccftech.com/samsung-sk-hynix-and-micron-now-face-a-us-federal-class-action-lawsuit-for-colluding-to-bring-about-a-rampocalypse/) without explicit collusion are well-documented in semiconductor cycles. DDR3 and DDR4 are aging standards, and shifting investment toward HBM and newer DDR5 nodes may simply reflect rational technology transitions rather than cartel behavior. A comparable **2018 civil case** was dismissed, with the Ninth Circuit affirming in 2022 that parallel pricing alone isn’t sufficient to prove an illegal agreement. This case faces a real legal hill to climb.\n\nIf the suit survives early motions and reaches discovery, internal capacity-planning documents could surface — the point where regulatory interest tends to sharpen. Micron’s stock wavered on the news, according to Investors.com. Your RAM upgrade bill, though, isn’t getting cheaper on any courtroom timeline — and if you suspect you’re already [paying too much](https://www.gadgetreview.com/things-youre-paying-too-much-for-without-realizing) for everyday tech, the pattern may be broader than just memory chips.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/your-ram-price-just-jumped-700-in-4-years-a-new-lawsuit-says-it-was-a-heist", "canonical_source": "https://www.gadgetreview.com/your-ram-price-just-jumped-700-in-4-years-a-new-lawsuit-says-it-was-a-coordinated-heist", "published_at": "2026-06-30 15:28:51+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-30 15:53:34.190106+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-chips", "ai-infrastructure", "ai-ethics", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Samsung", "SK Hynix", "Micron Technology", "Bathaee Dunne LLP", "Noel Wise", "Troy's Computers LLC", "My Florida PC", "JB Tech Solutions LLC"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/your-ram-price-just-jumped-700-in-4-years-a-new-lawsuit-says-it-was-a-heist", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/your-ram-price-just-jumped-700-in-4-years-a-new-lawsuit-says-it-was-a-heist.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/your-ram-price-just-jumped-700-in-4-years-a-new-lawsuit-says-it-was-a-heist.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/your-ram-price-just-jumped-700-in-4-years-a-new-lawsuit-says-it-was-a-heist.jsonld"}}