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ATI & Nvidia price fixing

OilyRag

OilyRag

OilyRag

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/03/email_exchange_nvidia_ati_price_fixing_cartel/

Emails allege ATI-Nvidia price fixing conspiracy

New details have been released on the evidence backing a civil lawsuit against Nvidia and ATI (now owned by AMD) - evidence that allegedly indicates the two companies participated in a graphics card price fixing cartel.

In June 2007, at least 51 separate complaints were lumped together and amended into a single class action lawsuit against the GPU vendors in the US District Court of the Northern District of California.

The complaint was filed on behalf of everyone in the US who has bought a graphics card from either ATI or Nvidia from December 2002 to the present. It alleges the companies "conducted numerous secret meetings and communications in which they conspired to fix, raise, maintain and stabilize prices of GPUs sold in the United States."

During the class certification hearing in July, US district Judge William Alsup demanded to see evidence of a conspiracy. When presented with an alleged email exchange between Dan Vivoli of Nvidia and Dave Orton of ATI, he read aloud an enticing piece of the text:

I really think we should work harder together on the marketing front. As you and I have talked about, even though we are competitors, we have the common goal of making our category a well positioned, respected playing field. $5 and $8 stocks are a result of no respect.

"That's not good for defense," Alsup said after reading the email. "A jury would like to see this."

Alas, so would we. Fortunately, Tom's Hardware now says it has its mitts on the entire document. The story and email PDFs are here.

What's added is a bit more heft to the evidence that Alsup called "not a home run [but] a base hit" for the prosecution.

Here's an alleged Vivoli chestnut that may suggest collusion:

Both of us have spent the last three years trying to bring the perceived value of our products up to the level of Intel. The "GPU" category is clean and has served us well that way. We both have increased the price of our high end product several fold over the last 4 years while Intel’s high end prices have more than halved. Creating another category serves to work contradictory to that. How does one cleanly position it versus a GPU and a CPU?? It will tear down what we have both built.

A more detailed breakdown of the case, including charts illustrating pricing and release schedules before and after the alleged conspiracy period can be found in the complaint (PDF warning). ®
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As I wrote in another thread, this will result in some sort of fine, conveniently bypassing the consumer. Then business as normal.
 
Emails must have stopped prior the 4870 launch or the GTX 280 wouldn't have been so bloody expensive :D.
 
Does anyone really believe price fixing will ever stop. Just because business is more cautious about email and telephone correspondence, it does not mean such deals will stop. Banks, Airlines, Car Manufacturers, Sportswear Giants, Supermarkets, Building Companies, Oil Companies (the list goes on...) will continue fixing prices as long as consumers exist.

If they are not fixing prices, they are applying unreasonable surcharges such as excess delivery charges and illegal contract tie-ins. Internet delivery charges are currently being investigated by the EU because the charge to the customer is frequently much greater than the cost supplier really pays (it is a stealth charge).
 
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Greebo said:
You have the best beer in the world (probably) :D
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That is true, but nowhere as nice places to drink it as you :P

Just saying that i would love to have OcUK within driving range as some of you have, or just live where i can order from OcUK/competitors easily, we have almost no choice in terms of large stock retailers here :/
 
performance wise - we are getting a LOT more for our money than when the geforce 8 series was released

we all know prices are hiked up on release [just look at the 8800gt]

im so used to it it makes no odds to me

i normally scout out/wait for good deals anyway
 
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