A class action suit was filed yesterday in the Jerusalem District Court for NIS 20 million against the importers of Crocs shoes as a result of the report published last week in TheMarker.

The report stated that Antitrust Commissioner Ronit Kan was investigating the importer, New Cinema Ltd. The suit was filed against the firm and its owner, Amos Horowitz.

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The suit claims that Horowitz and his company "initiated and organized a cartel that fixed prices for imported shoes of the Crocs brand between all the stores that sell these shoes to the consumer."

The plaintiffs said that New Cinema forced stores to sell the shoes at a set price and had warned the stores that if they lowered the price, they would halt supplies to such stores.

The shoes are sold at a standard price of NIS 199 a pair for the most popular Beach model, NIS 240 for the closed Highland model and NIS 280 for the designer Metro or Off Road models.

The suit states that the damage to consumers as a result of the cartel is NIS 65 per pair for the cheapest pair to NIS 95 for the most expensive.

Based on an estimate of 300,000 pairs sold, 80 percent the simple model, the damage to consumers is about NIS 20 million.

The plaintiffs say they filed the complaint with the Antitrust Commission nine months ago, but waited to file the suit until after the affair was revealed "in order to prevent impeding the secret investigation of the commission in the matter."

It is further claimed that store owners admitted that they were not allowed to lower prices to keep on selling the shoes. They claimed they could only find one store owner who had lowered prices, and that he had claimed that he was "well-connected" and would not be harmed - and that he said he had tripled his sales by lowering prices.

The defense has yet to file its response in the case.