COLUMBUS - A hearing today at which diamond giant DeBeers SA was expected to admit to its role in a 10-year-old price-fixing case has been postponed, while probation officers prepare a pre-sentencing report.
DeBeers had been expected to plead guilty at the hearing, according to the court docket. The probation report will help U.S. District Judge George Smith decide on a sentence, his senior law clerk, Keith Mayton, said yesterday.
Mayton said the delay does not reflect any snag in the case. He said the report could allow sentencing to take place at the same time as the plea, although that is not guaranteed.
A spokesman for the Justice Department declined comment yesterday. A phone message was left for an attorney for DeBeers.
The company must resolve the case before it can sell diamonds directly in the United States. DeBeers has sold diamonds in America only through intermediaries since shortly after World War II, when it was first charged with price-fixing.
The United States represents more than half the world's diamond market.
After 10 years of inactivity in the case, the court last month scheduled an arraignment and plea hearing for today. DeBeers and General Electric were indicted in 1994, accused of fixing prices in the $500 million industrial diamond market. Federal officials alleged that GE and DeBeers, which at the time controlled about 80 percent of the market, told each other about price increases in advance.
A federal judge dismissed charges against General Electric in December 1994, saying the government had failed to prove its case. The suits were filed in Columbus because GE's industrial diamond business was headquartered in the Columbus suburb of Worthington.
Industrial diamond is sold to diamond tool manufacturers, who use it to make cutting and polishing tools used in a variety of manufacturing and construction applications.
Prosecution of DeBeers has proven difficult for the past decade because U.S. officials have no jurisdiction over the company, which is based in South Africa.
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