Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

tommy_axle

It wouldn't be a first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal

0xy

I think it's incredibly unlikely to be deliberate price fixing this time. Demand is too high.

cbg0

This was attempted before in 2022 but fell apart because plaintiff couldn't show an agreement took place https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2022/03/07/2...

xiphias2

,,The plaintiffs claimed the three companies reduced D-RAM supply under the pretext of transitioning to high-bandwidth memory (HBM). "The D-RAM oligopoly companies systematically coordinated the shift to HBM and the discontinuation of DDR3 and DDR4," they said. They added that Apple's recent sweeping product price increases were the trigger for the lawsuit.'' How can they do price fixing and discontinuing a product at the same time? It just looks like some companies are angry that AI / VC industry is outpricing them.

glimshe

Everybody in our industry loves fat margins. But god forbid if someone else captures the margins and squeeze them out of easy profits.

Neywiny

HBM is also DRAM. I also think it's kind of a weak argument to say that them discontinuing ddr3 (which while in use still today in industrial/embedded was on the way out for consumers 10 years ago) and ddr4 which last had consumer CPUs for it 3 years ago is meaningful. What we need now is ddr5. Turning off the old fabs and moving those resources including people to ddr5 is a good thing. That's not price fixing. It's possible price fixing is in play, but discontinuing products people objectively don't use as much anymore isn't it.

WarmWash

Just a reminder that anyone can file a lawsuit over anything, and the initial complaint is written by lawyers and reads with tabloid levels of sensationalism and allegation. The goal being to maximize the appearance of harm as much as possible so the suit has the greatest chance of sticking. It is not in any way, shape, or form a ruling much less even a piece of well researched work. It's "my side of the story that makes me look perfect, with lawyers turning the heat up to 11"

cute_boi

I think the only solution to this issue is China. If CXMT can supply, it will put all these monopolies in check.

varispeed

Price fixing is legal as long as your are doing it in the open. In the UK it is called "price match" and eg. if supermarket says they keep prices matched to their competitor. No regulator raises an eyebrow. So here Samsung and SK Hynix could say they price match to Micron and they are in the clear.

tribal808

everything is political

mattfrommars

Anyone know what will lawfirms cut if they win from the lawsuit? How many millions are we talking.

bilekas

I mean there was an attempt before, and maybe I'm wrong but I'm sure they were fined in 2010 at least in the EU, this seems to be round 2 of their 'Memory Cartel' after learning some lessons, realising all they need to do is keep supply as low as they want and allow the AI companies to spend hand over fist. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_10_...

mrtksn

What happens if Samsung and SK Hynix simply stop selling to US at all? Micron is in US but are the rest still in the US jurisdiction? They are selling the hottest commodity of the day. It’s made outside of the US using non-American tooling.

Catloafdev

I don't see how this can really go anywhere, but it'd be nice if it does. Not like it'd be the first time someone shook a stick at them. At this point the only hope for change is if China finally decides to get in the game rather than just threatening to.

russli1993

Maybe software people can get around this issue by not making every app a electron bloat? This is now more than doable now you got AI right? And it will save your job

the_solenoid

Honestly, the knock on effects of this cartel behavior should concern all countries, and be remediated with expediency. From consumer electronics to the data-center, the rising real mfg costs and lack of supply is putting huge pressure on pricing, and may just drive anyone who cant negotiate with these suppliers out of business. Once the dominoes start, I fail to see how things recover in less than 3-5 years, not counting all the businesses wiped out in the meanwhile.

ndiddy

Looking forward to getting my $10 settlement 15 years from now like what happened with the DVD drive price fixing lawsuit (paid as a digital Visa gift card code so it can't actually be spent anywhere).

caycep

I also feel like there should be FTC or other antitrust actions against OpenAI and other hyperscalers, with nvidia being complicit, if they are cornering the market that badly on consumer RAM, SSD and other components, especially if these volume purchases are for projected datacenter that haven't even broken ground (or have been paid for) for many months. Furthermore, I think there should be a tax on algorithmic inefficiency, in that if a LLM, frontier or not, consumes more than a certain amount of KWH per token, it should be taxed such as to put emphasis on models than can run locally, on a normal PC

w10-1

dumb peripheral question: memory as a circuit would seems easy to add directly on-chip for a company like Apple. Is that blocked by time-frame, IP, technology, cost?

jmyeet

Antitrust and anticompetitive behavior continue to evolve. Back when the Sherman Act was passed, we were talking about backroom deals in smoke-filled rooms. One of the more important ways of recent years is where all or most competitors in a market use the same software that outputs the same value as to what they should charge. This is effective collusion even if it isn't explicit. The goal of such software is to raise prices. You raise prices by effectively or actually colluding with other market participants. The posterchild for this is RealPage [1]. But you're going to see this pop up in every aspect of life, such as gas prices [2] and meat processing [3]. The whole thing is kind of depressing because this is what "innovation" is now: fancy ways to collude on prices. [1]: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s... [2]: https://abcnews.com/US/wireStory/ai-helping-gas-stations-col... [3]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-a...