De Beers Diamond Lawsuit Could Entitle You to Substantial Refunds

You Could Be Entitled to Some Cash If You Bought a Diamond Over the Last Decade.

The De Beers diamond company is settling a $295 million class action lawsuit over price fixing through manipulation and monopolization. The judgment entered as a result of the settlement may provide refunds of up to 30% to De Beers' customers who purchased a diamond for personal use - covering resellers separately - between 01-01-1994 and 03-31-2006. To claim your refund, it is vital that you make your claim known by 05-19-2008.

De Beers has been in the diamond business since 1888 when it was founded to permit for a variety of mining efforts in Africa and later on in other countries as well. Over the years the company was subjected to much criticism, but price fixing had not be associated with the company until 2004, when a $10 million fine was levied against De Beers for price fixing and conspiring with General Electric Company to manipulate the pricing of industrial diamonds.

Of course, price fixing is not new in the world of big business and one does not have to look to exotic products such as diamonds to notice cases of price fixing. The English paper The Guardian reported in April of 2007 about a case of price fixing involving Heineken. The brewer stood accused and was fined for manipulating the price of beer in Holland. Asserting collusion, another brewery charged was Grolsch while InBev turned stoolpigeon and even though named in the case escaped any fines being levied. Heineken was named in 2004 for a similar offence in France.

In 2001, the CBC reported on a price fixing scandal that was considered one of the most far reaching in the industry and Canada's history. Vitamins were at issue then and consumers who for more than a decade had paid good money for products utilizing vitamin enriched ingredients found that they had been overcharged. Since most anyone is a consumer of bread, milk, cereal, and pasta - as well as a host of other products that are commonly fortified with vitamins - this naturally caused an outcry against perpetrators Hoffman LaRoche of Switzerland, Rhone Poulenc of France, BASF of Germany, and Eisai Company Limited and Daiichi Pharmaceutical of Japan.