De Beers, the world's largest diamond importer, settled a class action lawsuit Monday worth $297 million, which would be divided roughly in half between consumers and diamond merchants and resellers.

The lawsuit charged that De Beers and its subsidiaries violated antitrust, unfair competition and consumer-protection laws by monopolizing diamond supplies, and conspired to control the diamond prices by fixing and raising them as per their discretion.

The South African company, which controls 40 percent of the world's diamond trade. was also charged with false advertising.

Under the settlement, De Beers would pay $22.5 million to the "direct purchaser class members and $272.5 million to "indirect purchaser class members."

Consumers who purchased diamonds from De Beers directly or indirectly between 1994 and 2006 will be eligible to receive a rebate. The rebate amount will be determined based on the quality of the diamond.

The case is being heard in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. The next hearing in the case is set for April 14.

Gibson filed the suit on behalf of Keith Kay, Orlando Perez and Shannon Smith, who became incensed when Xbox Live's service was plagued with connectivity issues over the holidays. Smith contacted Microsoft in December in an attempt to determine the cause of the outage, but got in touch with Gibson when he received no response.

As Gibson explained to MTV, the class action suit is a valid way for disgruntled Live subscribers to be heard: "When you have one person who is mad and they can't get a response, and they can't get their complaints addressed by a company like Microsoft, the only way to get their attention is in numbers." According to Gibson, more than 50 people have joined Kay, Perez, and Smith in the suit.

The Complaint alleges that defendants violated federal securities laws by issuing material misrepresentations to the market concerning Virgin Mobile's business, operations and financial performance, thereby artificially inflating the price of the Company's stock.

No class has yet been certified in the above action. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. If you purchased the common stock of Virgin Mobile pursuant or traceable to the Company's Initial Public Offering on or about October 11, 2007 through November 15, 2007, you have certain rights, and have until January 22, 2008, to move for Lead Plaintiff status. To be a member of the class you need not take any action at this time, and you may retain counsel of your choice. If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this Notice or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Howard G. Smith, Esquire, of Law Offices of Howard G. Smith, 3070 Bristol Pike, Suite 112, Bensalem, Pennsylvania 19020, by telephone at (215)638-4847, Toll-Free at (888)638-4847, by email to howardsmithlaw@hotmail.com or visit our website at http://www.howardsmithlaw.com.

Three law firms have filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of victims of last weekend's Fernley flood - the second such complaint in two days.

In their suit filed Friday in Lyon County District Court in Yerington, the Reno firms of Maddox & Associates, Leverty & Associates and Dunlap & Laxalt are seeking unspecified damages from the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District.

The complaint came a day after Reno lawyer Robert Hagar filed a
suit in Washoe County District Court on behalf of Judy Kroshus, whose home was among hundreds flooded after a storm-swollen irrigation canal ruptured Jan. 5. That suit, which also seeks class-action status, names the irrigation district, local governments and homebuilders as defendants.

Both lawsuits allege that the irrigation district did not properly maintain the canal and failed to minimize damage once the breach occurred in the fast-growing town 30 miles east of Reno.

Ernie Schank, TCID president, said the district reacted as quickly as possible after learning about the rupture, which was reported at about 4:20 a.m.

"This will be a complex case," lawyer Cal Dunlap told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "A lot of this is unknown territory. It's not immediately clear which laws apply."

Judges will have to certify the lawsuits as class actions, meaning that the suits represent all plaintiffs affected by the flood.

"It's unusual for two class actions to be certified," said Jeffrey Stempel, a law professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "Filing first is always an advantage."

Stempel maintained the irrigation district generally would be liable for flood damage.

"If you've penned up an animal and the animal escaped and hurt
someone, it's usually your responsibility," he said. "In this case, the district penned up water and it got away from them."

The irrigation district operates the canal under a contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which owns it.

Schank has said he realizes the district will be targeted by lawsuits, but was unsure whether it's liable for flood damage.

Betsy Rieke, area manager for the reclamation bureau, has said her agency thinks the district would be liable.

Rieke's agency continues to investigate the cause of the breach, which occurred after unusually heavy rain.

A recently enacted law will allow class-action lawsuits -- commonplace in the countries such as the United States -- to be filed in Italy starting July 2008.

Adusbef, which focuses on financial services matters, wants to take aim at the so-called practice of anatocism, where compound interest is calculated on the initial loan plus interest that is accumulated each time the money comes due.

"We want to start from the most hated banking practice, this form of usury that is known as anatocism," Adusbef said.

That is opposed to using simple interest, in which only the interest on the original money borrowed is added.

Although banned by the Italian civil law code, Italian banks have been using compound interest for over 50 years, Adusbef said. No-one at Italian banking association ABI was immediately available for comment.

If you bought diamonds over the last decade, you might be entitled to some money back.

The mining company De Beers is settling a $295 million class action lawsuit.

De Beers was accused of fixing diamond prices and monopolizing the market. The case involves diamonds bought from 1994 through March of 2006.

The amount of money you can get depends on how much you paid an the quality of the diamonds.

https://www.diamondsclassaction.com