Seventeen individual plaintiffs filed a class action antitrust lawsuit on June 25, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology, alleging the three chipmakers coordinated to restrict supply of DDR3 and DDR4 dynamic random-access memory and drive prices artificially higher [1]. The case, captioned Garciaguirre v. Samsung Electronics et al., was assigned to Judge Noel Wise [1][2]. Plaintiffs allege that prices for the affected memory products rose approximately 700% over a four-year period as a direct result of the alleged coordination [1].
The complaint invokes Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibits contracts, combinations, and conspiracies in restraint of trade [1]. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron collectively control roughly 90% of the global DRAM market, a concentration that plaintiffs argue amplified the competitive harm caused by any coordinated production restraint [2]. The complaint specifically alleges that the defendants used the industry's shift toward high-bandwidth memory, driven by artificial intelligence infrastructure demand, as a pretext to cut output of conventional DDR3 and DDR4 modules while supply constraints pushed consumer and enterprise prices upward [1][2].
The filing positions the three companies as direct price-fixing conspirators rather than firms responding independently to market signals, a framing that will require plaintiffs to clear the threshold of pleading concerted action under Twombly. At the class certification stage, plaintiffs will face the additional burden of demonstrating that common questions of law and fact predominate across a purchaser class that likely spans both consumer and commercial buyers of DRAM-containing products. No defendant has yet responded publicly to the complaint, and no scheduling order has been entered in the public record as of the filing date [1][2].
The case joins a broader pattern of private antitrust litigation targeting semiconductor pricing. DRAM suppliers have faced regulatory scrutiny in multiple jurisdictions over the past decade, including investigations by competition authorities in China and the European Union, though those proceedings did not result in findings that bound U.S. courts. Whether plaintiffs can produce documentary or economic evidence of explicit coordination, rather than parallel conduct consistent with oligopoly dynamics, will be the central legal question as the case proceeds toward a motion to dismiss. Judge Wise has not set a hearing schedule [1][2].