Yet another party is suing the three largest canned and pouched tuna producers in the United States, accusing them of price fixing, but this time the suit is coming from an individual consumer.
Beverly Youngblood, a Florida resident, has filed suit in U.S. federal court seeking unspecified damages against Bumble Bee Foods, StarKist, and Tri-Union Seafoods. Tri-Union is the subsidiary of Thai Union Frozen Products (TUF) that sells tuna in the United States under the brand Chicken of the Sea. Youngblood’s lawsuit indicates she is suing “on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated.” The suit acknowledges that an exact number of plaintiffs is difficult to calculate, but estimated the number to be “in the thousands.”
“As a result of defendants’ illegal conduct in restraint of competition, consumers, including plaintiff and all members of the proposed class, have been forced to pay supracompetitive prices for (canned and pouched tuna products) and thus have been harmed by defendants’ conduct.”
This is the fourth lawsuit of its kind in a month to hit the three companies, the others coming from New York-based Olean Wholesale Grocery Cooperative, Grocervice, Inc., otherwise known as PITCO foods, of San Jose, Calif., and Texas-based Affiliated Foods.
In all three of those suits, the plaintiffs alleged Bumble Bee, StarKist and Tri-Union conspired to keep prices higher despite noted declines in consumption of canned and pouched tuna in the United States. The suits also cited talks of TUF purchasing Bumble Bee Foods and the resulting antitrust probe by federal regulators as further evidence of collusion among the brands.
Youngblood’s lawsuit makes similar allegations and cites similar evidence, but unlike the other suits, which all have distributors and wholesalers as plaintiffs, the newest lawsuit is a consumer class-action case against the three companies.
