Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing(en.sedaily.com) |
Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing(en.sedaily.com) |
They are selling the hottest commodity of the day. It’s made outside of the US using non-American tooling.
Depends if US can demand ASML which uses plenty of US tech inside. In reality even the DRAM and NAND supply chain has plenty of US technologies.
And you say Micron are US but they have lots of Fabs in Japan as well since they acquired Elpida.
The thing about the US losing its grip on the world and the collapse of the global world order means that the words on the paper don't mean much. Embargoes on Russia didn't mean much so Europeans are physically taking over their ships and Ukrainians are physically sinking the rest of their ships. In Iran nothing other than physically sinking ships and blowing up places meant anything.
Europeans can ship EUV machines because they are physically building them for people who will use these to physically build the most valuable products currently there is. US wasn't able to enforce its will to Iran, what if Koreans, Europeans and the Chinese decide that its not into their interest to act according to US courts?
They would lose access to their largest market, I'm sure shareholders would havesomething to say about that ?
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.
OpenAI's original corporate agreements capped its returns at 100x, which is seen as too paltry for its current holders, so they scrapped those to prepare for an IPO [0]
That is, in a word, insane.
[0] https://abhs.in/blog/openai-for-profit-conversion-ipo-develo...
Yeah that's how law works. Everyone likes money, but that doesn't mean it's fine to steal money. Yes, even from maligned entities like "big tech" or "private equity"
AMD just re-released their 5800X3D for AM4 board users who wish to upgrade which is further evidence that shutting off DDR4 production is premature.
Of course it might be a ploy to sheep-herd consumers and companies towards the expensive DDR-5. I would not put that below the ring of RAM producers.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_10_...
How many millions are we talking.
But the challenge is in proving it.
The most expensive foundry / fab isn't the leading edge, it is the "empty" ones. You can't have a fab sitting idle.
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"
However the practical penalty for filling absurd lawsuits is zero unless you do it repeatedly to random people for a decade.
Absolutely nothing bad will happen to the plaintiff or the lawyers representing them in this case.
Western legal systems are broken.
If the plaintiff loses the lawsuit a countersuit is pretty unlikely to succeed unless the lawyer participates in gross misconduct. Generally, countersuits are filed more to put the original plaintiff on the defense and don't result in a large judgement.
If you are operating in good faith, then you are pretty insular from kickback as a plaintiff
None, hence the high price of liability baked into basically everything in America. And not just in nominal prices, but in terms of things like restricting access to spaces, restricting access to information, etc.
So here Samsung and SK Hynix could say they price match to Micron and they are in the clear.
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.
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
How much % of the DRAM market do you think is made from computer enthusiasts upgrading their Zen 1/2 CPUs to Zen 3? Note intel and AMD both switched to DDR5 well before the exit from DDR3/DDR4 ("2024-2025", according to the complaint).
The answer is an obvious "fuck yeah", even if you ignore the DDR5 price gouging. People will buy it because people still have DDR4 hardware, and that hardware is still extremely relevant.
So if there's a market for it, but none of the suppliers are trying to sell to it... Wtf is happening? Basic capitalism logic says any rational supplier would sell DDR4 for easy profits, meeting an unmet demand. That it isn't happen points to some kind of collusion, IMO.
In the U.S., competitors are allowed to act in similar ways in response to economic realities, as long as they each arrive at that decision independently. But publicly anchoring your price to a competitor’s is potentially illegal.
> Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, orinferred from conduct) among competitors to raise, lower, maintain, or stabilize prices or price levels.
[Emphasis added]
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
No, the key term is "collusion", which could be done in the open or not. If a competitor told you they were unilaterally raising prices in secret, that would still be legal. Where you get into trouble is if you are cooperating to set prices. And no, this is all determined by a judge so cute workarounds like "I'm telling my competitors that I'm raising prices then gauging his body language" won't work.
Gas prices are posted on massive highly visible signs and are public information. This wasn't collusion, it was a sign of intense but friendly competition.
Price fixing is a many-to-one all the manufactures agree to the highest prices they all agree on and set it there.
This is like if you showed a supermarket that their competitor's oranges were more expensive, and they "matched" by raising their prices for everyone.
Corporations avoid picking fights with large nations where lots of revenue comes from for very obvious reasons.
DDR4 production is likely still quite profitable, just not drowning-in-money AI-bubble profitable. If smaller foundries existed they’d be happy to take up the business.
Maybe really what needs to happen is some busting up of the giants…
Otherwise they could continue to make DDR4 at a higher cost and sold at a higher price to which people will complain price fixing again.