Diamonds Are A Class Counsel's Best Friend: Fairhurst v. Anglo American PLC

Co-authored by: Peter H.T. Lee, Student-at-Law

The British Columbia Supreme Court certified a class action for a class of indirect purchasers of diamonds in a recent development in the suit against the De Beers group of diamond producers. The case involves allegations of price-fixing and bid-rigging conspiracies, in what has been characterized as historic and global proportions.^1.

Background

The class plaintiff alleged that the defendants conspired to and benefited from illegally inflating the prices of diamonds, and that the inflated price was passed on through the various levels of purchasers, which ultimately caused class members to pay more for the diamonds than they otherwise would have. In considering the key issue of whether the class plaintiff had properly framed claims against De Beers, the Court contemplated the apparent inconsistencies between recent cases from the B.C. Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada dealing with torts of