HP Inc on Friday was awarded US$439 million in damages against Quanta Storage Inc (廣明光電) and its US subsidiary, Quanta Storage America Inc, after a US federal judge tripled a jury’s award for damages that were caused by a widespread scheme to inflate the price of optical disk drives.
Quanta Storage is a Taoyuan-based subsidiary of contract laptop maker Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦).
In October last year, a Houston jury ordered Quanta Storage to pay HP US$176 million in damages.
Texas Southern District Judge David Hittner on Friday said that Quanta Storage had not shown any reason that the jury’s findings should be set aside.
He tripled the damages award, as authorized under antitrust law, to US$528 million before deducting US$89 million in settlements paid by the other companies HP accused of participating in the price-fixing scheme.
Other disk-drive makers such as Hitachi-LG Data Storage Inc, Sony Optiarc Inc and Panasonic Corp settled with HP over the past decade. Only Quanta Storage chose to go to trial.
Andrew Lusby, an attorney for Quanta Storage, said that the company was not commenting at this time on the tripled damages.
The Taiwanese company had argued that tripling the damages would violate constitutional prohibitions on excessive punitive damages.
However, the judge said that antitrust law allows for tripling awards as compensatory rather than punitive damages.
“HP hopes this judgement sends a powerful message to suppliers all over the world that there are significant consequences when you violate US antitrust laws,” HP lawyer Alex Roberts said in an e-mail after Hittner’s ruling.
In a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, Quanta Storage said it was still assessing the impact on its operations.
The company reiterated that it has a different business model from those of the other defendants, as it only assembles disk drives on a contract basis for Sony Optiarc, which sold the completed products directly to HP.
Quanta Storage said it regretted the judge’s decision and would appeal the ruling to protect the interests of the company and its shareholders.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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