If you bought a laptop, computer monitor, or television with a flat-panel LCD display between 1999 and 2006, and you live in one of the affected states, you could be eligible for a damages payment under a half-billion-dollar settlement of a class-action lawsuit involving price-fixing.

The California attorney general's office issued a statement this week urging residents of the state to visit a new class-action Web site--lcdclass.com--for information on how to file a claim.

In October 2010, California's attorney general filed a lawsuit against 10 companies, including Samsung, Hitachi, and Sharp, that alleged the companies "conspired to fix, raise, maintain, or stabilize prices of TFT-LCD Flat Panels resulting in overcharges to consumers who bought products containing" the panels, according to an FAQ on the lcdclass.com site.

Not all of the companies have settled, but those that have, have set up a damages fund of more than $500 million to pay individual and business consumers in the District of Columbia and the following 24 states:

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Florida

Hawaii

Iowa

Kansas

Maine

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Nevada

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Rhode Island

South Dakota

Tennessee

Vermont

West Virginia

Wisconsin

The settlement is one of the largest yet among similar cases.

It's not yet known how much money individual claimants will receive or when they'll receive it. If you think you may be eligible for a damages payment, visit the Web site, call (855) 225-1886, or write to: LCD Class, P.O. Box 8025, Faribault, MN, 55021-9425.

The settling companies will pay the following approximate amounts into the fund:

Samsung: $240 million

Hitachi: $38.98 million

Sharp: $115.5 million

Epson: $2.9 million

Chimei: $110.27 million

Chunghwa: $5.3 million

HannStar: $25.65 million

The nonsettling companies are Toshiba, LG Display, and Au Optronics, and the lawsuits against them are currently pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Neither these companies nor the settling companies have admitted guilt in the alleged price-fixing scheme.