This article is more than 1 year old

Sueballs lobbed at Tosh, Samsung and LG over 'optical disk cartel'

They had 90 per cent of the optical drive market and it's NOT FAIR, weeps HP

Now Acer is suing Toshiba, Samsung and others in a California court over optical disk product price fixing - just a day after HP sued Tosh, Samsung and LG over the same thing.

As reported by Bloomberg, the HP lawsuit, filed in Houston, claims the three CD, DVD and Blu-Ray optical disk makers operated an effective cartel from 2004 to 2010.

A full 90 per cent of the optical disk drive market was under the control of Toshiba, Samsung and LG, according to HP's claim filed in federal court in Houston.

HP’s suit follows an investigation by the US Department of Justice which led to three Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) storage execs pleading guilty to anti-trust violations in the optical disk industry two years ago. At the time the DoJ said the three would serve between seven and eight months in jail and pay a $25,000 fine.

Critically, HLDS itself also coughed to the violations, which seems to have given HP the idea of suing the ass off Toshiba, Samsung and (un)Lucky Goldstar*.

HP is asking for (unspecified) triple damages and injunctive relief. With Acer joining in, expect Dell and Microsoft to follow suit. ®

Bootnote

As any fule kno, LG Corporation used to be called Lucky Goldstar before it fell victim to the name-abbrev'ing craze of the late 2000s.

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like