[−]jareklupinski · 2026-11-15 Sun 11:20 UTC ·
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> On 5 April 2006, Sun Woo Lee, Senior Manager of DRAM at Samsung Electronics, entered into a plea bargain with the US Government for his involvement in the price fixing conspiracy. Following the plea agreement he was sentenced to 8 months in prison and fined US$250,000. Lee was subsequently promoted to President of Samsung Germany in 2009, and then President of Samsung Europe in 2014.
how many successful careers include 8 months in prison
The allegations haven't been proven to be true. Thats what the courts will decide on when the class action continues.
[−]woadwarrior01 · 2026-11-15 Sun 12:06 UTC ·
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You might want to read the court docket attached at the bottom of the page. The plaintiffs present substantial circumstantial evidence, consistent with tacit collusion (which is not illegal). It's for the courts to investigate and decide if there was explicit collusion, which is illegal.
Tacit collusion and just working within the same market can also look the same. I have no skin in the game (other than wanting prices to go down again), but there is also way too much emotion involved in the discussions about this because it is hurting our wallets.
- Cutting DRAM production in 2022 as a result of low prices/demand made sense if they didn't expect the market to recover as quickly as it did. A lot of the recovery is also likely caused by the start of the AI boom.
- The deals OpenAI made with SK Hynix and Samsung was a smart move by OpenAI where they drove up prices for everybody else while securing "cheap" supply themselves. I dont think its clear whether SK Hynix and Samsung came out ahead in that deal as the demand likely would have risen either way and it wouldn't have needed to go up by as much as it has now.
- Moving production to HBM also makes perfect sense when that is what the market demands and is willing to pay a premium for.
Every billionaire has incentive to make public statements influencing their competitors while not doing what they say. If everyone else reduces production, you get to take the excess.
See the repeated prisoner's dilemma, where the fact that you keep repeating the game completely changes what it means to have an optimal strategy. A company doesn't make a choice to collude or not once, they make it over and over again.
Billionaires and corporations collude every day via Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc. We've just made it almost impossible for them to leave a paper trail, and for us to prove it. Thus we get lots of people defending their actions as "just business" or something: plausible deniability is all most people need.
[−]matheusmoreira · 2026-11-15 Sun 15:40 UTC ·
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> but there is also way too much emotion involved in the discussions about this because it is hurting our wallets
That's a matter of course. This goes way beyond our wallets. They are actively pricing us out of computing. They are deliberately pushing computers back to the big iron mainframe era.
Computers are subversive: they democratized cryptography, copyright infringement, all sorts of things. Now that humanity has developed AI, they will not cannot tolerate mere citizens having access to powerful computers any longer.
If we don't fight this somehow, it's over for us. Everything the word "hacker" ever stood for will be destroyed. We need some kind of second amendment but for computers.
I was going to say the same, so I'll just add to your comment: it's possible too that there's a brave new world of local LLMs just around the corner that this kind of thing is retarding.
(Speaking of which—I've seen people suggest a seti@home-like approach to creating a frontier-level, fully open LLM. C'mon, guys, let's vibe code this thing!)
> The judge found that long-term HBM lock-ups, refusals of long-term conventional DRAM contracts, Micron's Crucial closure, fab delays, the failure to expand despite record prices, near-identical customer vetting and the companies' prior cartel history supported a plausible inference of conspiracy.
[−]philipallstar · 2026-11-15 Sun 18:21 UTC ·
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The only conspiracy is that they can make more money selling HBM and fabs are slow to spin up.
Tacit collusion is only legal in specific circumstances. If the companies involved seem to be acting against their own economic self interests, are communicating indirectly, or are collectively using some external mechanism (like realpage or whatever it was called) to set prices, it can be illegal.
And they were proven to be true. From the Wikipedia article:
“To date, five manufacturers have pleaded guilty to their involvement in an international price-fixing conspiracy between July 1, 1998, and June 15, 2002, including Hynix, Infineon, Micron Technology, Samsung, and Elpida.[3]“
I have to disagree with you there, the parent comment is claiming that this has happened before and they cite that Wikipedia article. ;-)
In my opinion, the fact that this has happened before, and that the companies involved eventually plead guilty, is an important piece of information for people following this story. Especially in light of the statements from the companies involved today.
The comment said "this isn't the first time", present tense, meaning they are currently being found to have done it again. That's not true (the finding has not happened yet), and what the person you're going back forth with is arguing.
The situations are quite different though. The DRAM industry price fixing scandal came in the aftermath of them heavily scaling up production. The manufacturers had all scaled up the production so much that they couldn't sell it all. They would all have had to sell at a loss if they were to compete.
It is the complete opposite of the current situation.
Collusion is a viable strategy, regardless of the market situation. They've been shown to apply price fixing in the past; presumably they still know each other's phone numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_industry_price_fixing
how many successful careers include 8 months in prison
The allegations haven't been proven to be true. Thats what the courts will decide on when the class action continues.
- Cutting DRAM production in 2022 as a result of low prices/demand made sense if they didn't expect the market to recover as quickly as it did. A lot of the recovery is also likely caused by the start of the AI boom.
- The deals OpenAI made with SK Hynix and Samsung was a smart move by OpenAI where they drove up prices for everybody else while securing "cheap" supply themselves. I dont think its clear whether SK Hynix and Samsung came out ahead in that deal as the demand likely would have risen either way and it wouldn't have needed to go up by as much as it has now.
- Moving production to HBM also makes perfect sense when that is what the market demands and is willing to pay a premium for.
It made less sense back when billionaires needed to get on trains and spend hours to collude. Now they just make podcast appearances.
See the prisoner's dilemma.
That's a matter of course. This goes way beyond our wallets. They are actively pricing us out of computing. They are deliberately pushing computers back to the big iron mainframe era.
Computers are subversive: they democratized cryptography, copyright infringement, all sorts of things. Now that humanity has developed AI, they will not cannot tolerate mere citizens having access to powerful computers any longer.
If we don't fight this somehow, it's over for us. Everything the word "hacker" ever stood for will be destroyed. We need some kind of second amendment but for computers.
(Speaking of which—I've seen people suggest a seti@home-like approach to creating a frontier-level, fully open LLM. C'mon, guys, let's vibe code this thing!)
> The judge found that long-term HBM lock-ups, refusals of long-term conventional DRAM contracts, Micron's Crucial closure, fab delays, the failure to expand despite record prices, near-identical customer vetting and the companies' prior cartel history supported a plausible inference of conspiracy.
They didn't even announce plans to expand production until after the news of this class action lawsuit broke, despite massive DRAM price increases.
“To date, five manufacturers have pleaded guilty to their involvement in an international price-fixing conspiracy between July 1, 1998, and June 15, 2002, including Hynix, Infineon, Micron Technology, Samsung, and Elpida.[3]“
What hasn't happened is that they have been found guilty in the latest class action lawsuit. Which is what this discussion is about.
So far the court has only decided that the lawsuit can proceed, which indicates there is some substance to it.
In my opinion, the fact that this has happened before, and that the companies involved eventually plead guilty, is an important piece of information for people following this story. Especially in light of the statements from the companies involved today.
It is the complete opposite of the current situation.