Mitsubishi Electric Corp agreed to pay $33 million to settle all Indirect Purchaser Plaintiff claims in an anti-trust class action lawsuit over an alleged price-fixing scheme of Cathode Ray Tube products (CRTs) with other competitor companies in the industry. The original complaint claimed that the company participated in an “international conspiracy to fix the prices of cathode ray tubes” in television and computer monitors.

Mitsubishi Electric Corp, a Japanese corporation made up of over 145,000 employees worldwide, was not the only company brought into a lawsuit alleging price-fixing beginning as early as 1995 and lasting until 2007. The plaintiffs accuse a handful of companies of holding meetings to coordinate on setting prices on CRT products. In the beginning, the plaintiffs allege that these meetings were only between Samsung, Philips, Daewoo, LG, and Chunghwa, but grew to include Mitsubishi over the years.

Beginning in the 1990s until the early 2000s, for every TV or computer monitor that was produced, CRT, the glass video display, was a required component. CRTs were the precursor to flatscreen technology and are almost completely obsolete now.

This case grew into multidistrict litigation covering 30 states and the District of Columbia, brought to federal court by 150,000 indirect purchasers of CRTs. The complaint covered only indirect purchasers - in other words, those who bought a product such as a TV that incorporated this product already. Each indirect purchaser could receive around $3,035 in compensation.

This is the second class action lawsuit Mitsubishi Electric has settled this year. In January, Mitsubishi agreed to pay $13 million in an anti-trust lawsuit over price-fixing allegations involving fuel injection systems. However, unlike the lawsuit over CRTs, this lawsuit only covered direct purchasers of the system.

Three core anti-trust laws preserve free trade in the United States: the Sherman Act, passed in 1890, and the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Act, both passed in 1914. The Sherman Act, which started it all, is the “comprehensive charter of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as the rule of trade.” It prohibits “every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade.” The Supreme Court later decided that not every restraint of trade is inherently illegal, but only those that are unreasonable.

At its core, anti-trust law regulates companies to establish prices on their own without collaboration or agreement with a competitor. Price-fixing allegations are routinely investigated by the FBI and, if found guilty, individuals and companies can be criminally prosecuted and can face up to ten years in prison and up to $1 million in fines for an individual and up to $100 million for companies.

Under U.S. anti-trust law, price fixing does not just relate to prices but can also include warranties, discount programs, and shipping fees. Defendants facing price-fixing allegations might argue that no agreement was made, but they cannot justify their decision or behavior to get out of sentencing.

This will be the tenth approved settlement to indirect purchasers of CRTs; the nine others totaled over $580 million. In March 2012, the first settlement started with Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd, then in April 2014 another settlement was reached with LG Electronics Defendants, and finally, July 2020 saw settlements with Philips, Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba, Samsung, SDI, Thomson, and TDA.

The final settlement hearing for this case is set for September 22, 2022.