On February 24, Prisco Electric Co., Inc., a home electronics retail store, filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit against Sony Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., LG Electronics Inc., Hitachi Ltd., and other several subsidiaries in the U.S. District Court in California. In its 31-page complaint, and the plaintiff claims, "The disc drive manufacturers used trade organization forums to meet and discuss agreements to keep prices of CD, DVD and Blu-ray drives in products like the Sony PlayStation 3 and PCs artificially high."  Prisco alleges the companies as co-conspirators who attempted to "fix, raise, maintain and stabilize the price of Optical Disk Drive Products sold in the United States."

"When the price of ODD began to dip, the Defendants entered into an illegal agreement to prevent competitors from entering into the market and to keep prices at a competitive level," the lawsuit states.

Currently, 90 percent of this multibillion dollar market is controlled by the defendants. The plaintiff alleges that the defendants have a long history of engaging in anticompetitive conduct, such as Dyanmic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) and Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)."

Although no specific amount is sought at this point, Prisco intends to ask for treble damages and an injunction against companies to immediately stop any price fixing activities for now and in the future.  The treble damage means a triple of any damage suffered by the plaintiffs when the defendant is found guilty and willful in committing such a crime.

In connection to the civil case, an investigation was launched last October by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) into the market for optical disk drives for anticompetitive conduct. The DOJ subpoenaed Sony Optiarc America, which at the time said it intended to cooperate fully with the DOJ and other agencies in this inquiry."  Furthermore, Samsung, Hitachi, and Toshiba have received subpoenas from the DOJ regarding price fixing on optical drives. The companies made either no comments or could not be reached for comment. 

Prisco is alleging that the price fixing among the defendants started as early as October 1, 2005 and it is still continuing the violation. 

The suit includes Sony Optiarc America Inc., Sony NEC Optiarc Inc., Hitachi-LG Data Storage and Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corp.

Prisco Electric Company Inc v. Sony Corporation

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