US: Judge throws out Kodak, Fujifilm aluminum price-fixing cases

A US judge on Wednesday threw out the last vestiges of private litigation over alleged aluminum price-fixing, dismissing lawsuits by Eastman Kodak, Fujifilm Holdings, Reynolds Consumer Products and three other plaintiffs.

US District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan on Oct. 5 dismissed nationwide litigation in which purchasers accused Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase & mining company Glencore and others of conspiring from 2009 to 2012 to boost prices by reducing supply.

Forrest later agreed that the other six plaintiffs were entitled to have their claims considered separately because they had filed their own lawsuits.

But she said those claims must also fail because there was no proof that the defendants engaged in anticompetitive conduct outside the aluminum warehouse services market.

“The court accepts that plaintiffs here paid higher prices as a result of the alleged conduct,” she wrote. “That is not enough. [The] plaintiffs needed to be injured in the warehouse services or warrant trading markets that were allegedly being directly manipulated.”

Full Content: Reuters

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