De Beers U-turns, jumps into synthetics

De Beers previously singled out synthetic or lab-grown diamonds as the biggest threat to rough diamonds, as players in the former industry pushed out countless carats, at low input costs, while marketing these as natural. 

By not only labelling its lab-grown diamonds, but also cutting their prices and flooding the market with them, De Beers is hoping to force “rogue” synthetics producers to toe the line and market their products distinctly from the natural variety.