Class action lawsuit against Celestron

[kittenshark (Cheryl-Ann Tan)]

Just FYI.
Consumers are not happy.
Retailers are not happy.
Somewhat related to the Orion vs Meade/Ningbo Sunny (same lawyer bringing about the lawsuit)

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-...jYm6viCA_JlWKE

Celestron Acquisition and Ningbo Sunny Electronic Co. faces a class action for allegedly conspiring together to create a telescope sale monopoly.

Plaintiff Daniel Hightower, a telescope consumer and amateur astronomy enthusiast, says that a jury has already found that Celestron and its parent company in China, Synta, conspired with their competitor Ningbo to fix prices, divide the market and illegally dominate it so that they could rip off American purchasers.

Hightower asserts that Synta and Ningbo Sunny manufacture more than 80% of the telescopes imported into the United States. He claims that, instead of competing with each other, the two companies have agreed on what prices to charge and which telescopes their companies will produce.

The plaintiff maintains that Celestron controls at least 70% of all U.S. telescope sales to consumers who are forced to pay supra competitive prices. Hightower says that as a result of this conspiracy, he and his fellow putative Class Members have overpaid for telescopes by at least $350 million.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Ooooh ... !! naughty

[multiweb (Marc)]

Oh well, you don't delocalise production, sell assets O/S then come and complain when it comes to bite you back in the ass. If you're willing to pay a little more for a domestic product then that's a good choice.

[drylander (Peter)]

Seeing as the head office is in china I can't see anything changing at the moment with the party being so belligerent regardless of how it will affect chinese businesses in the future.
will be watching with interest.
Pete

[multiweb (Marc)]

Business with China is a wild card in today's economy or what's going to be left of it. Too much dependency right now originally driven by low production costs. Maybe the new model will take into account local production at a higher cost but with flow through back to the local community closer to home. One can dream. I see a lot of borders and trade disputes emerging in Europe already. A lot of tension. People protests.

[glend (Glen)]

Synta pretty much monopolises the Australian market as well, as it owns Celestron and Skywatcher brands, and imports both through TASCO. GSO is still standalone as far as I can tell, with Andrews the major importer of their products, but Bintel badge GSO scopes but it is unclear how import happens, perhaps direct.

[kittenshark (Cheryl-Ann Tan)]

Originally Posted by glend

Synta pretty much monopolises the Australian market as well, as it owns Celestron and Skywatcher brands, and imports both through TASCO. GSO is still standalone as far as I can tell, with Andrews the major importer of their products, but Bintel badge GSO scopes but it is unclear how import happens, perhaps direct.

Tasco had blocked those who were direct importing celestron as authorized dealers and jacked up prices to the point they are unviable. They will lie to everyone to suit themselves. It is well known in the industry.

Double whammy for aussie buyers. Global monopoly and local monopoly.

[billdan (Bill)]

Quote

"Hightower says that as a result of this conspiracy, he and his fellow putative Class Members have overpaid for telescopes by at least $350 million."

Where does that figure come from, that can't be an annual figure surely, the telescope market is not that big. If each person overpaid by $200 per scope that suggests there are 1,750,000 scopes sold in the US each year, unlikely I would think.

So that $350 Million must be over a period of time , 5 years , ten years or more ???

The law suit also says the fine/penalty should be triple that amount to stop other Cartels from doing likewise.


So where does that leave the US manufacturer of scopes, struggling to compete against the imported scopes already, knowing that Celestron and Skywatcher will be forced to drop their prices by $200 or more per scope.