On November 14, 2026, Judge Noël Wise of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied the motion to dismiss filed by Samsung, SK hynix and Micron in a lawsuit alleging they restricted DRAM supply. According to the court's order of the same date, the plaintiffs allege that the three companies coordinated to limit the supply of commodity DRAM beginning in October 2022. The ruling allows the case, which seeks class certification, to move forward.
The plaintiffs are 17 consumers and small businesses in five U.S. states, who filed suit on June 25, 2026. At this stage, the court took the plaintiffs' well-pleaded factual allegations as true and read them in the plaintiffs' favor, then asked whether there is a legal basis for the case to continue. It did not find that the three companies conspired, broke the law, caused damages or bear individual liability.
The key point of the ruling is that it distinguishes between investment in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI and conduct that makes it hard to restore commodity DRAM supply. Commodity DRAM includes DDR for PCs, LPDDR for smartphones and server memory. HBM, by contrast, is a specialized DRAM used mainly in AI accelerators. The court accepted that investing in HBM, a growth market, was itself a reasonable business decision. But it examined whether a series of actions, including supply contracts and capital spending, could be explained by independent decisions alone.
HBM investment versus decisions that are hard to reverse
The plaintiffs allege that the three companies cut production in late 2022 and 2023, then shifted production capacity to HBM, and then scaled back DDR4 production. The court examined these three types of conduct as "parallel conduct," in which competitors make similar decisions at similar times. According to the complaint, the initial production cut announcements came from SK hynix on October 26, 2022, Micron on November 16, 2022, and Samsung on April 7, 2023. The court found the parallel-conduct allegation plausible, noting that the SK hynix and Micron announcements came only about three weeks apart, while Samsung's came about four and a half months later.
The plaintiffs argue that the alleged agreement to restrict supply, which they say continued from October 2022, violates Section 1 of the Sherman Act, the U.S. antitrust law. The suit also includes claims under the laws of five states, including California. However, in an oligopolistic market, competitors may watch one another and make similar business decisions without any prior agreement. The court therefore looked not only at whether the conduct was similar, but also at whether "plus factors" exist that would support a reasonable inference of prior agreement, and finally evaluated them together.
On the shift to HBM, the court acknowledged that the three companies' decisions made economic sense. According to the complaint, in 2023 and 2024 commodity DRAM prices were still recovering from the 2022 slump, and HBM was more profitable. Investing in a growth market carries risk, but it is not so unnatural a choice that a rational company would make it only if it had a prior agreement. The court held that a simple production cut or a shift to HBM alone is insufficient to support an inference of unlawful conspiracy.
What the court did take issue with were the specific contracts and business decisions that accompanied the HBM shift. According to the plaintiffs, the three companies secured large volumes of HBM supply through long-term contracts, while Samsung and SK hynix refused long-term contracts with major commodity DRAM customers. The plaintiffs also cite Micron's December 3, 2025 announcement that it would end its consumer brand Crucial. In addition, they allege that the three companies did not significantly expand production capacity even after commodity DRAM prices rose sharply.
The court distinguished such conduct from temporary production cuts or price changes. Multi-year supply contracts and the end of a brand that lasted 30 years cannot easily be withdrawn even if market conditions later change. Even if commodity DRAM prices rise, the companies would have created a situation in which the capacity allocated to HBM cannot easily be restored. The court held that, taken together, these actions are hard to explain as independent corporate decisions, and so the first plus factor supports the plaintiffs' claims.
The plaintiffs further allege that Samsung and Micron halted or delayed plans to build multiple DRAM fabs between 2023 and 2025. Drawing on past precedent holding that production capacity cuts are not easily reversed, the court applied the same reasoning to decisions about whether to build fabs. Because canceling or delaying capital investment affects supply capacity over a long period, the court assessed it as a plus factor separate from the HBM shift, and one that supports the plaintiffs.
How the court evaluated the eight plus factors
The court did not treat all terminations of older-generation DRAM production the same way. According to the complaint, Samsung and SK hynix ended their DDR3 production lines in 2024, while Micron continued small-volume production. Because DDR3 was already two generations old, and the three companies' actions did not match in timing or substance, the court viewed the decisions as consistent with ordinary product generation turnover. It did not accept the end of DDR3 production as parallel conduct supporting an inference of conspiracy.
It reached a different conclusion on DDR4. According to the plaintiffs, even though DDR4 was still widely used, the three companies announced production reductions in the same quarter, April to June 2025. They allege this triggered panic buying by major PC makers and pushed the per-gigabyte price of DDR4 above that of the newer DDR5. The court accepted the DDR4 production cuts as parallel conduct and assessed them as a plus factor suggesting prior agreement rather than independent decisions.
Particularly significant was the three companies' introduction of similar customer vetting. According to the plaintiffs, in January 2026 the three companies tightened their screening of DRAM orders, checking such things as the end destination of supply, order volumes and whether demand was real. The court found that not only the timing of the screening but also the substantial similarity of the questions strongly supports an inference of conspiracy. It explained that even without direct evidence that the defendants actually exchanged customer information, this can be assessed as a plus factor at this stage.
The court consolidated the 11 plus factors cited by the plaintiffs into eight categories to eliminate overlap. The assessment under Part III.B of the order (pages 12–19) is as follows. Of the eight categories, five supported the plaintiffs, public statements and industry conferences were not accepted as support for an inference of conspiracy, and market structure was treated as neutral.
| Plus factor | Court's assessment | Key point |
|---|---|---|
| ① Conduct accompanying the HBM shift | Supports plaintiffs | Long-term supply contracts, the end of Crucial and the decision not to expand commodity DRAM output were assessed together |
| ② Halting or delaying DRAM fab construction | Supports plaintiffs | Decisions about production capacity are not easily reversed |
| ③ DDR4 production cuts | Supports plaintiffs | Announcements in the same quarter, continuing demand and the price inversion with DDR5 |
| ④ Similar customer vetting | Strongly supports plaintiffs | Substantially matching timing and questions |
| ⑤ Public statements by executives | Does not support plaintiffs' inference | Ordinary investor communications that independent firms would also make |
| ⑥ Contacts at industry conferences | Does not support plaintiffs' inference | Insufficient allegations supporting specific information exchange or agreement on supply coordination |
| ⑦ Oligopolistic structure of the DRAM market | Neutral | Consistent with both independent conduct and conspiracy |
| ⑧ Past price-fixing cartel | Supports plaintiffs | Similar past conduct involving the same products and parties |
These are assessments at the motion-to-dismiss stage, which assumes the plaintiffs' allegations are true. The assessments by category are based on the respective sections of the order, and the plausibility of the complaint was judged on all the circumstances taken together.
Regarding executives' public statements, the court held that explaining production plans and capital spending outlooks to investors and analysts is itself ordinary corporate activity. As for industry conferences, although the attending executives and dates were identified, the court did not accept them as a basis for inferring conspiracy because there was insufficient evidence identifying what information was actually exchanged or any agreement on supply coordination. It also assessed the fact that the DRAM market is an oligopoly dominated by a few companies as neutral, because it is consistent with both independent conduct and conspiracy.
The court did, however, accept the past price-fixing cartel as a circumstance supporting the present claims. The three companies were involved in the DRAM price-fixing cartel of 1998 to 2002; in the U.S. Department of Justice investigation, Samsung and Hynix were fined, while Micron received immunity for cooperating with the inquiry. Because similar conduct involving the same companies and products is at issue again, the court held that the matter can be taken into account even though it dates back about 20 years.
Differences from earlier DRAM litigation also influenced the ruling. In an earlier suit against the same three companies over price increases in 2016 to 2018, the appeals court upheld dismissal in 2022. That complaint centered on a pattern in which a market leader cut output and competitors followed. By contrast, the present case combines multiple circumstances: production cuts led by SK hynix and Micron, decisions on supply contracts and capital investment that are hard to reverse, the decision not to expand output after prices soared, and similar customer vetting.
Judge Wise cited past precedent describing competitors in an oligopolistic market as watching one another "like hawks," and said the plaintiffs' allegations here describe not merely hawks watching each other but "hawks flying in formation." The conclusion is that even if individual actions might be explained as independent decisions, evaluating the plaintiffs' allegations as a whole provides sufficient basis to infer a prior agreement.
Conditions behind the price increases, and next steps in the case
The rate of DRAM price increases needs to be read with attention to the market and period involved. According to the court order, the plaintiffs allege that commodity DRAM prices rose 697% over 18 months. That figure comes from the complaint filed on June 25, 2026, and was not independently measured by the court. The order also cites another figure, based on a news report, in which the plaintiffs claim that retail DRAM prices have risen 500% since early October 2025.
For non-retail contract prices, the complaint cites quarterly increases based on news reports: about 50% in the fourth quarter of 2025, 93% in the first quarter of 2026 and 58% in the second quarter. These are quarterly increases in contract prices, and differ in subject and period from the cumulative increase in retail prices.
Tom's Hardware also covered the suit in a November 15 article, describing the DRAM shortage and price increases of up to 500% as changes over about a year. However, that wording differs from the retail price increase period described in the court order, and does not match the 697%-over-18-months figure claimed by the plaintiffs. These price increases are an important background to the suit, but the court did not decide that a conspiracy existed on the basis of the rate of price increase alone.
Going forward, the three defendants must file their answers to the complaint by December 7, 2026. The first case management conference is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on January 12, 2027. That conference is meant to coordinate the schedule for the case going forward, including discovery, and no schedule has been set for a ruling on the merits.
The defendants have argued that each company made reasonable business decisions based on its own interests. Given growing AI demand and the profitability of HBM, they say, there are economic reasons to shift capacity away from commodity DRAM. The plaintiffs, for their part, combine long-term supply contracts, the halting or delay of capital investment and similar customer vetting to argue that a prior agreement existed. In the proceedings ahead, whether these decisions were made independently by each company or were based on an agreement among them will be contested through the evidence submitted.