Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)
The Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Antitrust Litigation addresses one of the largest global price-fixing conspiracies ever litigated in a U.S. antitrust MDL: a years-long, multi-continent agreement among CRT manufacturers to coordinate pricing and limit output of components used in televisions and computer monitors sold worldwide. Centralized in the Northern District of California in 2008, the docket has produced an extensive record on market definition, conspiracy scope, and damages methodology over its history, and still carries 54 pending actions — a reflection of the scale of the original conspiracy and the layered structure of direct-purchaser and indirect-purchaser claim tracks that developed within the same MDL.
What drives resolution risk in a docket like this at its current phase is less about re-litigating whether a conspiracy existed — that foundational question has been extensively tested — and more about claim-specific issues: which purchasers fall within the established conspiracy period, how damages models apply to a given plaintiff's purchase history, and how remaining direct-purchaser claims are sequenced relative to the indirect-purchaser track that resolved earlier in the docket's history. That bifurcated structure, common in large purchaser-class antitrust matters, is itself a useful pattern for understanding how big conspiracy MDLs manage multiple layers of the distribution chain within a single centralized proceeding.
For anyone tracking duration and resolution paths across purchaser-class antitrust litigation, CRT is a instructive long-run example of how a sprawling global conspiracy claim moves from initial centralization through staged resolution of different purchaser tiers. Criterica Intelligence's platform surfaces this kind of structural detail — conspiracy scope, purchaser-tier sequencing, and remaining docket population — across every active MDL, giving litigation professionals a calibrated read on phase without relying on a single headline statistic.
It consolidates claims that CRT manufacturers coordinated globally on pricing and output for components used in televisions and computer monitors, harming both direct purchasers who bought CRTs to build products and indirect purchasers further down the distribution chain.
Direct and indirect purchasers sit at different points in the distribution chain and face different legal standards for standing and damages under federal antitrust law, so large conspiracy MDLs often manage them as separate tracks within one centralized proceeding, resolving on different timelines.
Not whether a conspiracy existed — that has been extensively litigated — but claim-specific questions: whether a given purchase falls within the established conspiracy period and how existing damages methodology applies to that plaintiff's purchase history.
CRT illustrates how a sprawling, multi-defendant global conspiracy can be managed through staged resolution of different purchaser tiers within a single MDL, a structural pattern Criterica Intelligence tracks when reading duration signals across comparable dockets.
Statistics shown reflect historical or illustrative model outputs derived from real case data. They are not predictions or guarantees of any individual outcome. Litigation results depend on facts, jurisdiction, judge, and counsel, and vary case by case. Model accuracy is subject to selection effects and changing legal dynamics.