By Mike Scarcella

June 9 (Reuters) - Contractors and other commercial purchasers of PVC pipe have secured their first settlement in a lawsuit in U.S. court accusing some of the industry’s largest manufacturers of conspiring to fix prices and overcharge buyers.

The preliminary class action settlements with data and analytics company Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) were disclosed on Friday in the federal court in Chicago, and require a judge’s approval.

OPIS, which is owned by Dow Jones & Co., agreed to pay a combined $6 million to classes that include commercial and municipal PVC pipe buyers, and to cooperate with the ongoing litigation against PVC pipe makers, according to the settlement terms.

The pipe buyers accused manufacturers including Atkore ATKR.N, Westlake WLK.N and Otter Tail OTTR.O of sharing competitively sensitive data with OPIS to unlawfully coordinate on pricing. OPIS had produced until late last year a weekly PVC pipe market condition report.

Atkore, Westlake and Otter Tail, which were not included in the settlement, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

OPIS in a court filing said the settlement would avoid the cost and uncertainty of litigation. The Maryland-based company denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

In a statement, OPIS said the allegations "involved an isolated situation impacting one product, which we have since discontinued." Dow Jones was not a defendant.

Lawyers for pipe buyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Lawsuits accusing the manufacturers and OPIS of a price-fixing conspiracy were filed late last year and consolidated before U.S. District Judge LaShonda Hunt.

The plaintiffs in court filings said more than $3 billion of PVC municipal water pipes were sold in the United States in 2022. PVC pipes are also used for plumbing and electrical conduit purposes.

Lawyers for buyers who procured pipe directly from one of the defendant manufacturers said they plan to amend their lawsuit based on OPIS' cooperation to expand the scope of the alleged conspiracy.

Hunt on Friday in an order said she will allow plaintiffs' lawyers to pursue separate class action claims on behalf of consumer PVC purchasers.

The case is In re PVC Pipe Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, No. 1:24-cv-07639.

For non-converter seller purchasers: Brian Clark of Lockridge Grindal Nauen and Karin Garvey of Scott + Scott Attorneys at Law

For direct purchasers: Robert Kaplan of Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer

For OPIS: Brian O’Bleness and Natalie Spears of Dentons

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(Reporting by Mike Scarcella)

((Mike.Scarcella@thomsonreuters.com;))