NVIDIA Faces 51 Price Fixing Lawsuits

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According to this Down Jones Newswire story, NVIDIA says that 51 civil complaints have been filed against it as of May 14 alleging price fixing and anti-competitive agreements, among other things, between Nvidia and AMD. Thanks to Mike for the heads up.

In its annual report filed March 16 with Securities and Exchange Commission, Nvidia said 42 civil complaints as of March 14 were filed against it on the same allegations. Nvidia said Thursday in a quarterly report filed with the SEC that a majority of the lawsuits were filed in the Northern District of California; several were filed in the Central District of California and other cases were filed in several other federal district courts.
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LOL! They both keep prices artificially high....whodathunkit?

Anyone who says there's no collusion on these $500+ card prices is insane.
 
I tend to agree. Not that the prices are waaaayy off, but there is some sort of manipulation at work/play, some of the time. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.
 
hmm. I'm a capitalist at heart, and I think that if they want to charge $500 for a graphics card, and people pay $500 for a graphics card, then that's fine.

If nvidia and amd/ati truely have had price-fixing agreements, though, then that's bad news.
 
Whatever. Whomever has had the fastest card has generally charged around $500 and the slower player has had to reduce their price. The market decides the price not the companies. Look at DRAM manufacturers, they're always trying to fix prices (and getting caught) and it doesn't work.
 
Not saying it did or did not happen.. But.......... Those sort of cases can be really hard to prove.. They tend drag on for months and sometimes years.. And then often end with a whisper..

Unless there are a bunch of living breathing employees/ex-employees willing to testify, with accompanying documents as evidence, don't expect to hear much more about it.. Nothing much with any real substance, anyway..
 
price fixing? did anyone ever stop to think there wasn't any competition to bring the price down until practically a week ago? guess those suing forgot they were living in a capitalist society.
 
Well, lets see here. The 8800Ultra is $899, so I guess these little children and their lawyers can go home now. This is stoopid, it is all market economics. The market has set the price of the newest and latest GPU price point (MSRP) and even then, newegg might dick you another $20 because the item is the latest and greatest.

Market Price Point, MSRP, Fair Market Value, ect., get it?

Why dont they go after sombody with real money like Big Oil. Or maybe Lawyers for the set percentage rate they take on these frivolous lawsuits.
 
Price fixing, in general, is a bad thing. As such, I'm all for lawsuits when there's evidence of price fixing.

However, it's not like a graphics card is an essential commodity.
 
killrose said:
Well, lets see here. The 8800Ultra is $899, so I guess these little children and their lawyers can go home now. This is stoopid, it is all market economics. The market has set the price of the newest and latest GPU price point (MSRP) and even then, newegg might dick you another $20 because the item is the latest and greatest.

Market Price Point, MSRP, Fair Market Value, ect., get it?

Why dont they go after sombody with real money like Big Oil. Or maybe Lawyers for the set percentage rate they take on these frivolous lawsuits.
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You have missed the point. I am abolutely fine when the market decides on a high price. No problems at all with high prices, as long as they are dictated by the market. The point of this lawsuit is that the price has not been dictated by the market. AMD and NVIDIA have colluded and agreed that they will both charge $500 for their high-end cards.

This would be like tomorrow Intel and AMD jacking the price of the E6300 and 3600+ to $750 at the same time tomorrow. No one dictated that price - they both raised at the same time and agreed to keep them high. What are you going to do then? It's not like you can take your business alsewhere, who are you going to buy, VIA? :p
 
killrose said:
Well, lets see here. The 8800Ultra is $899, so I guess these little children and their lawyers can go home now. This is stoopid, it is all market economics. The market has set the price of the newest and latest GPU price point (MSRP) and even then, newegg might dick you another $20 because the item is the latest and greatest.

Market Price Point, MSRP, Fair Market Value, ect., get it?

Why dont they go after sombody with real money like Big Oil. Or maybe Lawyers for the set percentage rate they take on these frivolous lawsuits.
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I agree, the price of gas keeps going up and up and up. With the oil companies making Billions and Billions every quarter. Were is the lawsuit against them for price fixing.
 
Exavior said:
I agree, the price of gas keeps going up and up and up. With the oil companies making Billions and Billions every quarter. Were is the lawsuit against them for price fixing.
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I thought we *had* laws against price fixing, particularly for gas, because there were problems with that happening in the 70's. Since the people making the laws are making money hand over fist, they don't care how much the price goes up as long as they keep getting elected and making money.

Capitalism does not automatically equal greed. When there is competition, everyone wins - that is good capitalism. When the competition gets too cozy with each another, work to squeeze everyone else out of the market and then work together to make sure they can keep prices artificially inflated, that is greed and price fixing.
 
SEALTeamSix said:
However, it's not like a graphics card is an essential commodity.
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ROFL, I know it isn't really a "essential commodity," but you do realize you just got the virtual finger from a lot of people for that blasphemous statement, right? :p
 
Graphic cards are essential to many industries and occupations. Usually not the gaming ones, but they are essential game developers. The gaming industry is a multi billion dollar industry so I would say it's important, and if you are employed in it, it's certainly essential.
 
where do i join the law suit? lol

no reason for a video card to cost 400$ a year ago and still cost 400$ today...the 8800 series was funny. they kept the 7 series prices the same and released the 8 series at even higher price points... WTF?!?

both players are abusing their market positions, glad to see them getting sued. anti-trust laws in the US are civil (vs criminal in Canada) - without the "beyond a reasonable doubt" prefix, the US DOJ should tear them both a new one. in the end, consumers win.
 
Ram manufactures, LCD, CPU manufactures as well. Seems those areas we are getting hosed. Only one that has gone down is hard drives.
 
Wtf are all you people talking about? Seriously please think for a second.

Since when do you buy Nvidia cards DIRECTLY like you do with ATI?

Nvidia sells cards directly to manufacturers which place the CHIP onto a board Nvidia doesn't even care about.


So... basically I'm supposed to believe that ATI has an agreement with the 15+ (or more) manufacturers of Nvidia graphics cards?

For either Nvidia OR ATI to be ahead of the other for equal performance at a difference of 100 bucks would not only be an honor but it's what they WANT.
 
DigitalisAkujin said:
Wtf are all you people talking about? Seriously please think for a second.

Since when do you buy Nvidia cards DIRECTLY like you do with ATI?

Nvidia sells cards directly to manufacturers which place the CHIP onto a board Nvidia doesn't even care about.
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All they have to do is fix the price of the GPU chip artificially high. The board manufactures will then have to charge $500+ to break even or make a profit on the boards.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
ROFL, I know it isn't really a "essential commodity," but you do realize you just got the virtual finger from a lot of people for that blasphemous statement, right? :p
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Yeah, I know.

And just for everyone's info, I paid over $300 for my graphics card, so don't hate me.

Who knows? Maybe I'll get some money out of this if it goes class-action...
 
killrose said:
Well, lets see here. The 8800Ultra is $899, so I guess these little children and their lawyers can go home now. This is stoopid, it is all market economics. The market has set the price of the newest and latest GPU price point (MSRP) and even then, newegg might dick you another $20 because the item is the latest and greatest.

Market Price Point, MSRP, Fair Market Value, ect., get it?

Why dont they go after sombody with real money like Big Oil. Or maybe Lawyers for the set percentage rate they take on these frivolous lawsuits.
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Because our president doesn't hold a shi tload of stock in nVidia?

Because the majority of the problems are OPEC, not the US governement.. OPEC is a cartel, they limit supply.. this means Americas prices are based off of supply and demand.. not taxes, not price gouging.. OPEC's to blame.


Also, yeah its funny how when the geforce/geforce 2 cards came out the most expensive one was around 250-300.. now its 900?..things haven't gone up that much..

and yeah collusion is illegal, I'm surprised one of them didn't break and drop prices to screw the other one over.. but then again, too much fanboyism skews that market concept.
 
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