It is fairly likely that they might file a class action lawsuit on behalf of Intel's customers.
About a week ago, Intel announced that some 13th- and 14th-generation Core processors can become unstable due to elevated voltages. A patch, expected in mid-August, should fix this.
The company promised to honour all RMAs, so all damaged CPUs should be replaced. The issue doesn't just affect the higher-end models — Intel says the instability bug also impacts mainstream 65W CPUs.
Intel sells its mainstream 65W CPUs in tens of millions of units, so it could be an expensive replacement cycle for Intel if the company honours all replacement requests. This is where things get interesting for class action lawyers, who are trying to determine whether Intel is fulfilling all RMA claims.
"Tom's Hardware says 'Intel has pledged to grant RMAs to all impacted customers,' [but] are there any reports that Intel is not doing that," asked a lawyer from Abington Cole + Ellery in a Reddit post.
"Warranty cases where the manufacturer is honouring the warranty rightly get tossed out of court with ridiculous speed."
An Intel customer responded that Intel had honoured its RMA. All the owner of an affected CPU had to do was take pictures of the CPU and send them to the company. Once the company is satisfied with the pictures, they contact the owner for credit card information and ship a new CPU before receiving the defective unit.
Once the owner gets the new processor, they have to send the bad CPU to Intel, and once the company receives it, it will reverse the charge on the credit card. There is a $25 fee for this advance RMA process, but the company also offered the option to send in the defective CPU first and then get the new one later.
For now, it seems Intel is taking care of faulty CPUs. Still, there will inevitably be unhappy customers, and it looks like class action lawyers are preparing to launch a lawsuit against the company if they find enough plaintiffs.
If they do and win the case, the judge could order Intel to pay compensation to virtually all owners of Intel's 13th- and 14th-generation Core processors. That's after the class action lawyers get their cut.