New Jersey Company Sues De Beers
By Rob Bates, Senior Editor -- JCK Online, 2/1/2004 2:00:00 AM
De Beers is facing yet another lawsuit.
This time, a New Jersey company, Anco Industrial Diamond, has filed a class-action suit against De Beers, charging that the company has violated antitrust laws.
The suit charges that De Beers has conspired to "fix, raise, and stabilize the price of rough diamonds," causing prices to "be maintained at levels higher than they would be in a competitive market."
In an exclusive interview with JCK, Tom Corcoran, the head of Anco Industrial, said he sued because he's "tired of [De Beers] pushing around companies such as myself. … They are holding me and my company back from making profits and growth by restraining my access to the rough diamonds. They are also driving up my clients' costs for the limited diamonds we do have access to through the secondary market."
He noted that De Beers "probably will not appear or answer the suit as is normal practice for them, and we will win a judgement against them. If they want to eventually sell here in the USA … they will have to settle my suit."
Corcoran's attorney, Jared Stamell, is a Harvard Law graduate who used to work for the antitrust division of the Justice Department. He has successfully sued De Beers once before, in a class action suit stemming from its 1996 indictment with General Electric for industrial diamond price fixing. The case was settled for $20 million.
