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De Beers Diamond Class Action Lawsuit Settlement Update
By Kimberly Mirando
We reported in December 2011 that a settlement in the De Beers diamond class action lawsuit had been approved, but it appears claimants may have to wait even longer as the challenges and appeals that have plagued the case for years continue to play out.
The De Beers diamond settlement is a huge class action lawsuit that will pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to consumers who purchased loose diamonds or jewelry and jewelry store owners who were affected by an alleged DeBeers monopoly, and who filed claims May 19, 2008. (You can read more about the De Beers diamond class action lawsuit settlement here.)
The Supreme Court’s denial of the first petition means that the previous decision by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to deny the Class Members’ objections to the De Beers diamond settlement will be reinstated.
No information was given on when the Supreme Court will rule on the second appeal, but payment of claims will likely be delayed until the Court acts on the second, and final (as far as we know,) appeal.
Updated May 24th, 2012
All class action and lawsuit news updates are listed in the Lawsuit News section of Top Class Actions
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78 thoughts onDe Beers Diamond Class Action Lawsuit Settlement Update
got this today for the admin:
—– Original Message —–
At: Aug 31 2012 11:13:22
If your claim is accepted, your payment amount will be based on several factors, including how much you paid, the quantity and quality of the diamonds you purchased, the amount of money that is available for your Class or Subclass, and how many Class Members file claims. Your Claim Form gives more information describing how your payment will be calculated. Additional details regarding how your payment will be calculated are found in Appendix B of the Long Form Notice.
There is no way to tell Consumer Subclass Members how much, if any, they will receive from the settlement proceeds before the Claim Administrator has finished processing all consumer claims submitted. When the Claim Administrator receives your claim, it will first calculate the “recognized claim amount” for your purchases by applying a recognized claim percentage to the price(s) you paid for your diamond jewelry or loose diamond. This is done so that the claims of all Consumer Subclass members will be based on the wholesale value of the polished diamonds in the jewelry, and not on the value of the setting (gold, platinum and/or other precious or semi-precious stones) or the retailer’s mark-up. A more complete description of this process can be found in Appendix C to the Class Notice.
Once all recognized claim amounts have been computed and verified, the distribution to all eligible claimants will be made pro rata. That means that each claimant’s payment will be calculated as a proportion of the total recognized claim amounts of all claims being paid. In the event that the total of the recognized claim amounts for all Consumer Subclass members is high, the actual payout of settlement proceeds to any eligible claimant will be less than the recognized claim amount of the claimant’s total purchases. No claimant will receive more than the total recognized claim amount for all the diamond jewelry or loose diamonds that he/she purchased.
There is also the possibility that the pro rata computation for some claims will result in payments of under $10.00, which are too small to process because of the administrative cost of distributing checks. Those claimants will not receive any payment.
Diamonds Claims Administrator
per the settlement records, there were about 6500 indirect purchaser claims
So is there really a $640 award limit (per person? per item?), or have people been taking this amount as gospel based on the published example of a $2000 engagement ring bringing $640 at 32% settlement amount?
we need to stay in touch more here because time is getting close
Just curious as everone else, this should have already been settled. WOW
I spoke to 800# today she verified my claim # and said no consumer checks had gone out yet and had no idea when they would start.
received. Finger hit wrong key
I sent in a claim in 2008 and redceived a claim number. Was I suppose to do anything else???
When all is said and done…more will be said then done. The 300 million will be eaten up by the lawyers etc and we will get NOTHING!
Those people that received the checks probably filed a different claim for a different lawsuit