Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron hit with US antitrust class action over DRAM prices

Category: Markets
Status: confirmed
Sources: Tom's Hardware, MLex, discussion
Summary: A class-action antitrust complaint filed 2026-06-25 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California (before Judge Noel Wise) names Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, which together produce most of the world's DRAM. The 17 plaintiffs (individuals and small businesses) allege the three coordinated supply and pricing from 2022 onward, using the industry's shift to High Bandwidth Memory for AI data centers as a pretext to curtail DDR3 and DDR4 output, with prices rising roughly 700 percent over four years. The allegations are unproven; the three companies pleaded guilty to DOJ DRAM price-fixing charges in the 2000s.
Why it matters: It is the first US legal challenge to the memory-price surge that this week drove Apple consumer hardware price increases and Micron multi-year floor-price contracts, and a finding either way bears on memory costs across the hardware supply chain.
Follow-up: Watch for the manufacturers' responses, any motion to dismiss, and whether regulators open a parallel probe.