Optical Disk Drive Antitrust Settlement
If you purchased a desktop or laptop computer with a DVD or CD drive during the period of April 2003 to December 2008, you may be eligible for an award under the Optical Disk Drive Antitrust Settlement.
This Settlement is the second of two that have been entered into stemming from a class action lawsuit accusing a group of electronics companies of engaging in a conspiracy to fix the prices of optical disk drives (“ODDs”). The fist settlement was for direct purchasers of ODDs. This second settlement is for indirect purchasers of ODDs.
An ODD is a device that allows data to be read from or written to an optical disk. The most common ODDs are DVDs and CDs that are part of a standard desktop or laptop computer.
Members of the settlement class are those who purchased an ODD manufactured by: Sony, Hitachi-LG Data Storage, Panasonic Corp. or NEC Corp. Such purchases must have been made from April 2003 to December 2008 and include:
- A computer with an internal optical disk drive (however, note that purchases of Panasonic-brand computers are not covered by this class action settlement).
- A stand-alone optical disk drive designed for internal use in computers; or
- An optical disk drive designed to be attached externally to a computer.
The estimate potential award is $10/drive. The claim form deadline is July 1, 2017.
It appears that a claim form can be submitted online at: https://www.opticaldiskdriveantitrust.com/#two. All that is required is for the claimant to provide the number of ODDs purchased during the period from April 1, 2003, through December 31, 2008. Note that the claim is made under penalty of perjury and the form does warn:
The Settlement Administrator has the right to request verification or more information regarding the claimed purchase(s) of Optical Disk Drive products for purposes of preventing fraud. If the Class Member does not timely comply or is unable to produce documents or information to substantiate the Claim Form and the Claim is otherwise not approved, the Settlement Administrator may disqualify the Claim.
If fairly good records of eligible purchases made during this period are available, it would not be difficult to make a claim. If interested in filing a claim, your legal counsel can answer questions or assist you.