August 17, 2015
Jeff Leitzinger brings TV tube price fixing into focus in class certification case.
On July 8, 2015, a California federal judge certified a class of direct purchaser plaintiffs accusing Mitsubishi Electric Corp. of conspiring to fix the prices of cathode ray tubes in televisions, ruling buyers of Mitsubishi televisions could easily determine whether they were in the class.
Econ One’s Dr. Jeffery Leitzinger was the economic expert for the direct purchaser plaintiffs — mainly retail companies — who had asked U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti to certify a class of buyers of televisions made by Mitsubishi.
Judge Conti sided with the purchasers, granting class certification and ruling that the class is, contrary to Mitsubishi’s arguments, ascertainable and not overbroad. Judge Conti found that Dr. Leitzinger convincingly showed that there is “evidence common to members of the proposed class” of the effect of the alleged price fixing.