Tech giants hit with lawsuit alleging collusion over RAM prices

Three major tech companies are being sued over allegations that they’ve been colluding to drive up the prices of RAM.

In a class-action lawsuit filed in the California Northern District Court, 14 individuals and three businesses accuse the world’s largest RAM manufacturers in the world — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron — of producing artificial component scarcity in an effort to increase prices. The plaintiffs allege that the defendants have “fixed supply and prices for DRAM, engaging in conduct that makes no economic sense absent collusion and that has driven up the price of conventional DRAM (sometimes called commodity DRAM) approximately 700% in a four-year period.”

To explain this, the plaintiffs argue that the companies have been focusing on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), which is typically used in data centres. That point is especially noteworthy since the rising costs of RAM have largely been attributed to companies investing trillions into AI. The plaintiffs also point out that Samsung and SK Hynix were previously indicted in 2006 for fixing the price of DRAM. It should also be noted that a Valve employee recently stated that even the mere attempt to negotiate with manufacturers on RAM pricing can result in being blacklisted.

In response to all of this, the lawsuit is seeking an end to this “unlawful and anticompetitive conduct,” as well as damages for those affected by the alleged price fixing. While we wait to see what happens with this lawsuit, tech companies will no doubt continue to raise prices. In the past several months alone, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo and Valve have confirmed price increases, and that’s just on the gaming front. Companies like Apple have also been jacking up the prices of their respective hardware.

Source: California Northern District Court Via: Kotaku