DRAM Manufacturers Slapped with Lawsuit over Supply Collusion, Price Gouging

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A new class action lawsuit filed by law firm Hagens Berman alleges that Samsung, Hynix, and Micron have “conspired to artificially limit the supply of DRAM chips in an effort to keep prices high.” The price of 4GB of DRAM rose 130 percent July 1, 2016 through February 1, 2018, and the litigants insist that such increases were intentionally planned.

It is also alleged that even though prices for DRAM more than doubled during the class period, the costs for Samsung, Micron and Hynix associated with producing the memory chips did not increase. Likewise, there were no major changes in process technology to justify the drastic increase in prices.
 
samsung made 27billion$ in 2016 and made 50billion$ in 2017, actualy doubled the revenue thanks to DRAM most likely, how much should they be fined so they w'd be deterred from doing it again ???
because sure as hell 1 or 2 billion$ won't cut it.
who needs R&D and innovation if you can double your revenue year over year just by limiting production of key components, this DRAM shiet makes me mad.
 
yep, if this pans out to be true, I hope they end up paying big.... I just bought a bunch of new parts, had intentions of building a new ryzen+ system, but dram prices were a big nope..... so ended up overpaying for a new but otherwise OLD socket 1150 motherboard instead so I could just reuse my old parts, along with a few other odds and ends
 
A new class action lawsuit filed by law firm Hagens Berman alleges that Samsung, Hynix, and Micron have “conspired to artificially limit the supply of DRAM chips in an effort to keep prices high.” The price of 4GB of DRAM rose 130 percent July 1, 2016 through February 1, 2018, and the litigants insist that such increases were intentionally planned.

It is also alleged that even though prices for DRAM more than doubled during the class period, the costs for Samsung, Micron and Hynix associated with producing the memory chips did not increase. Likewise, there were no major changes in process technology to justify the drastic increase in prices.

See that shit, and some people think that technology companies would never ever dare pull shit like that *cough* nvidia fanboi’s.

It’s fucked up and their should be consequences, as I am sure that if we had a company that made products that the world relied on and which we deliberatly limited the suppy of and also charged 130% more, we would soon get fuked up, look at that pharmaceutical dude who raised some drug to like 700% of what it normally was, where is he now ?

Fuckin prison, thats where he is at.

Same place these fuckers should be “if found guilty”, and if I was in charge.

it dont really matter as I have already made my mind up that they are all guilty.

So I have just saved a shit load of money that would of been used for a bullshit class action suit, how good am I ?

So where’s the hookers and blow at.....
 
I'm sure that jerkoff is still around somewhere and Just because someone files a lawsuit does not mean it's a sure thing.

If the Hagens Berman name sounds familiar, it’s because it was the firm responsible for securing the aforementioned $300 million settlement against Samsung and Hynix. So, it has the experience in this type of litigation and the investigative know-how to see this case through to its eventual resolution.

I think they have the averages on their side, that is a good chance a judge will allow this suit.
 
They’ve already lost. Cost isn’t a factor in pricing DRAM. Micron transitioned to 18nm during that period and Samsung began their transition to 1y.


But facts have never gotten in the way of those that whine about DRAM prices.

This is a fishing expedition to allow discovery on private corporate communications in the desperate hope that something was said and these ambulance chasers will probably face a stiff counter suit.
 
Frankly, I've been waiting for this. Some people insist it's just demand/supply, but I know of no other market that has taken 2 years to figure out the situation. All this demand, no increase in production... not to mention you can't increase prices to your heart's content, there are legal limits to what is acceptable. Plus, memory makers have done this before, so... I'm glad at least this will now be thoroughly investigated.
 
Dram manufacturers being sued??

what-year-is-it-robin-williams.jpg
 
samsung made 27billion$ in 2016 and made 50billion$ in 2017, actualy doubled the revenue thanks to DRAM most likely, how much should they be fined so they w'd be deterred from doing it again ???
because sure as hell 1 or 2 billion$ won't cut it.
who needs R&D and innovation if you can double your revenue year over year just by limiting production of key components, this DRAM shiet makes me mad.


All of the difference + 10% to 20%. That'll serve as a deterrent.

If doing something illegal can net you $1000 extra dollars with the risk of being caught is only $100, there's no risk really. You do it.

Until they start hitting these companies (I'm talking all of the shady ones like Wells Fargo and Equifax) with real fines that cost them all of their gains+, they'll see no reason *not* to do it.
 
didn't they make some excuse about shifting production to nand flash, so maybe the dram output was affected as a result ?
whatever bullshit. The last time I bought ram was a 4gb stick of ddr3 for $5 years ago.
Haven't needed to buy ram ever since, as my laptop came with 16gb.
 
didn't they make some excuse about shifting production to nand flash, so maybe the dram output was affected as a result ?
whatever bullshit. The last time I bought ram was a 4gb stick of ddr3 for $5 years ago.
Haven't needed to buy ram ever since, as my laptop came with 16gb.
ofc they did, knowing well the increasing demand from mobile, they went and shifted a significant part of production to Nand, why you ask ?
well, because if Nand price rises because of the demand, ppl simply won't buy it and would wait for prices to come down, as the extra storage is optional even for companies, but DRAM, if there is a price increase ppl cannot wait because it's a key component you can't run a system without Ram, their choice of switching production was not innocent or random it was carefully calculated.
 
Yet again...

Remember the last time this happened?

The fine will be paltry, and profits will negate any of it
 
This lawsuit makes me think of what is on this page http://www.kevincraig.us/antitrust.htm

On this subject I am reminded of a joke that Walter Block gave in this [MP3] fun interview hosted by Scott Horton. He originally gave this joke to a bunch of anti-trust lawyers and economists. . .

First joke is that there are three prisoners in the gulag in the former Soviet Union. The three find out why each of them is there. The first said that he came late to work and was accused of cheating the State out of labor. The second guy said that he came early and was accused of trying to out-compete his comrades. The third guy said that he came to work everyday and exactly on time, and the KGB accused him of owning a Western wristwatch.

Second joke is that there are three prisoners in the U.S. They were all in jail for economic crimes of violating monopoly laws. First guy said that he charged higher prices than anyone else and the government then accused him of price gouging and profiteering. Second guy charged lower prices than anyone else and they accused him of predatory and cutthroat pricing. And the third guy said that he charged the same prices as everyone else and they accused him of collusion and price fixing.

The first joke got some blithe laughs, but not the second one. They knew that the truth revealed in the second joke would mean the end of them. As Dr. Block says in the interview, we can have a justifiable and definable law against something like murder, but this is not the case with antitrust laws. These laws should not pass our initial olfactory impression.​
 
18 months from now when RAM prices have risen to 260% of what they were back in 2016, the case will be settled out of court for $10 a person claiming and nobody admits to any wrong doing. Prices will go down 25% and then rise again..
 
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beyond all this, there is also the fact that DDR4 and other "modern" memory tech is way lower cost per mb/gb than previous generations such as DDR3-2 standard DDR...that is yes it was pricey to get the nm tech down pat.

it seems that they were able to really ramp the higher speeds/capacities with DDR4 faster than other previous memory types just my guess it probably saves them ~2x per wafer yield or however you want to word it
so per mb/gb is way lower cost and higher % are available for use, so the cost and product they produce are WAY higher than previous generations.

more demand, I can see that, but if you were only able to produce say 10,000 "chips" per month with DDR3 and you double or quadruple the amount via DDR4 and more modernized spec (knowledge and very known fab process) the amount of loss is minimal.

I suppose the way I look at it is, you produce a much higher % that WORK more factories producing them, you want to stay on the edge of charge as much as possible to as many as possible they pay it or do not, and in the case of smartphones etc they really dont give a crap.

they put it on the asking price for the consumer to buy or not to buy, the higher the price ends up being, the more the memory companies make and the more the phone makers make (driving up price of "next generation models) and the more we as consumers bitch moan and complain about it (often just buy it anways...especially those paying for the term contract allowing a new phone every 2 years or so WAY overpaying for it)
 
So I signed up. But I feel like I should sign up like ten times. The must have bought at least ten devices that use ram in that time period.
 
I bought a 16GB DDR4 (2x8gb) ram kit for $62 in March 2016.

That same ram kit (Or any 16GB kit) is over $150 now.

I paid $300 for 32GB of good, fast DDR4 a year and change ago. I can't find the same RAM anywhere for less than $550 now.
 
samsung made 27billion$ in 2016 and made 50billion$ in 2017, actualy doubled the revenue thanks to DRAM most likely, how much should they be fined so they w'd be deterred from doing it again ???
because sure as hell 1 or 2 billion$ won't cut it.
who needs R&D and innovation if you can double your revenue year over year just by limiting production of key components, this DRAM shiet makes me mad.
They should be fined for that years worth of profits. They made $50 billion? Now the government made $50 billion. It'll go nicely to building roads and welfare programs.
 
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