Nvidia and ATI price-fixing lawsuit fizzles out

THE FIREWORKS in a class-action lawsuit alleging that Nvidia and ATI had colluded to fix prices on graphics products look to be sputtering out.

Following a federal grand jury investigation of price fixing complaints against Nvidia and ATI started in December 2006, a class-action lawsuit was filed against both companies in November 2007 in the state of California.

That seemed to have some legs when a seemingly suggestive 2002 smoking gun email from Nvidia's former PR honcho Dan Vivoli to ATI's then COO Dave Orton tipped up, which read:

"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."

However, the federal grand jury hasn't been able to find any evidence that the two graphics rivals actually fixed GPU prices, and it has communicated that finding to the judge presiding over the class action lawsuit.

In acknowledging that news, Judge William Alsup has limited the scope of the class action suit to consider only graphics cards sold directly from both companies to consumers. Since Nvidia has never sold any graphics cards to consumers itself, but instead sells its GPUs and chipsets only through graphics card business partner OEMs, that effectively leaves as the lawsuit's only plaintiffs any punters who bought ATI graphics cards direct from its website.

One really must wonder how ATI, which has since been purchased by AMD, could be found to have illegally fixed GPU and graphics card prices by colluding with... itself.

Since Nvidia has apparently been let off the hook and ATI sold only very few of its graphics cards directly online, this class action lawsuit seems to be fizzling out. µ

See Also
Judge backs action against Nvidia and AMD on price fixing

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