Judge blasts Samsung for misleading consumers

Samsung and a class of consumers who purchased the Samsung Galaxy S4, and who are represented by Prometheus Partners, will mediate their claims before a U.S. Magistrate Judge next week. In an earlier hearing, U.S. District Judge James Donato said from the bench “Samsung rigged the deck, fixed the game; and as a result of that, consumers were misled about the speed of the phone.” 

Lead counsel for plaintiffs, Eduardo Roy, alleged in court papers that “in connection with the marketing and advertising of the Galaxy S4, Samsung made false and misleading statements and/or omitted material facts in two respects—through benchmark manipulation and in connection with the memory capacity of the phones.  With respect to benchmark manipulation, … Samsung intentionally rigged the Galaxy S4 to cheat on benchmarking applications to create false impressions regarding the speed and performance of the phones.  By artificially manipulating the performance of the Galaxy S4 on benchmark tests, Samsung falsely represented the performance of its phones relative to those of its competitors.  Samsung took these actions knowing that the benchmarking manipulations would result in false information being communicated to consumers by reviewers, and that this false information would influence their buying decisions.”

This false impression was purportedly communicated to the public through numerous reviews and comparisons around the time of the Galaxy S4 release in late spring 2013. For example, A Slate article titled “the Great Smartphone Conundrum” published on March 26 2013, stated: “Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S4 posted a stunning 3,163 [benchmark score], twice as fast as the iPhone 5.”