Monday, April 30th 2018
Samsung, Micron, and Hynix Accused of DRAM Price Fixing
Law firm Hagens Berman has filed a class action lawsuit against Samsung, Micron, and Hynix in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. According to the firm's investigation, the three DRAM manufacturers conspired to limit the supply of DRAM chips between 2016 and 2017 with the purpose of inflating their prices. The firm affirmed that DRAM saw a 47 percent increase in price during 2017, which made it the largest jump ever in the last 30 years. As noted by the filing, Samsung, Micron and Hynix collectively own 96 percent of the worldwide DRAM market as of 2017. The "conduct changed abruptly" when the Chinese government launched an investigation to look into the matter. This class action is opened to consumers in the U.S. who've purchased a device that uses DRAM between July 1, 2016 and February 1, 2018.
"What we've uncovered in the DRAM market is a classic antitrust, price-fixing scheme in which a small number of kingpin corporations hold the lion's share of the market," stated Hagens Berman managing partner Steve Berman. "Instead of playing by the rules, Samsung, Micron and Hynix chose to put consumers in a chokehold, wringing the market for more profit."
This isn't Hagens Berman's first time to the rodeo either. The firm had previously achieved a $300 million settlement for consumers who paid high prices for DRAM back in 2006. Samsung and Hynix pleaded guilty to the charges and paid a collective sum of $731 million in criminal fines, and both DRAM manufacturers served a collective 3,185 days of jail time.
Source:
AppleInsider
"What we've uncovered in the DRAM market is a classic antitrust, price-fixing scheme in which a small number of kingpin corporations hold the lion's share of the market," stated Hagens Berman managing partner Steve Berman. "Instead of playing by the rules, Samsung, Micron and Hynix chose to put consumers in a chokehold, wringing the market for more profit."
49 Comments on Samsung, Micron, and Hynix Accused of DRAM Price Fixing
It is properbly one if the most obvious cases of pricefixing seen from the outside of the business. I understand that the need for RAM have risen, but the fact that my '16GB DDR3 2133mhz CL9' (Which was semi highend due to timing), costed half of what today asking price is today for 2400 mhz DDR4 is ridiculous. The process and fab size have been refined, and arguing that supply and demand is the source of this 100% rise counter to ALL other it related production is naive. Some fabs have had damages, the supply and demand have sky rocketed; If they did not have the monopoly from a production point of view, new players would have decimated their pricingschemes. This was too good a profit to let go to the big boys; lets hope the get punished accordingly.
How can a motherboard, which has more components, more complex chipsets, but is cheaper than DDR memory. Something is clearly wrong here.
Has there been an increase in costs per chips to AiBs, and assembled units to distributors?
The next CEOs might think twice before turning to crime, if the previous decision makers are in jail.
In other news:I'm glad the big lawfirm "uncovered" what I've learnt in Economy 101: if you allow mergers till there are only a handful of businesses left, those businesses will be super-careful not to upset each other (oh look, Wikipedia knows it, too: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly). Now, if only the rulemakers would take stock and supervise oligopolies as they should...
Idk whether the guy was right or not (I haven't read that thread), but historically, the complexity/price ratio never leaned towards the motherboard anyway.
Anyway now an Asus Prime x370pro a damn good mobo is priced at 140euros and the cheapest ddr4 2x8 kit is 165eur