US Grocery chain, consumers sue tuna companies over pricing

The lawsuits continue to pile up against the three largest canned tuna sellers in the United States, with three more suits filed this week alleging the companies colluded to fix prices.

Grocery store chain Piggly Wiggly Alabama Distribution Co., along with California residents Louise Ann Davis Mathews and James Walnum have all filed separate lawsuits in California against Bumble Bee Foods, StarKist and Tri-Union Seafoods, which distributes tuna in the United States under the brand Chicken of the Sea on behalf of its parent company, Thai Union Frozen Products (TUF). In addition, Walnum and Piggly Wiggly have named as a defendant King Oscar, formerly a Norwegian canned seafood company that was recently acquired by TUF.

The latest filings bring the total to eight separate suits against the companies in the past month alleging price fixing, six of those filed in the past week alone. All of them make the same case in similar language: That the three tuna companies together represent the bulk of the canned and pouched tuna industry in the United States, and as such were in a position to unfairly regulate the prices of their prepared tuna products.

All of the lawsuits cite data showing that consumption of these tuna products has declined in the United States in recent years, and that prices of tuna products from the defendant companies do not reflect the drop in demand. Piggly Wiggly’s suit argues that prices have gone up since 2000, despite a steady decline reported since 2000.

“These price increases since the beginning of 2000 were a direct result of defendants’ conspiracy to restrict capacity, allocate customers, and fix the prices of packaged seafood in the United States. As a result, plaintiff … paid artificially inflated prices for packaged seafood purchased from the defendants,” the suit stated.

All of the lawsuits also cite multiple cases of the companies working together or possibly merging as further proof of collusion. One of the most often-cited examples is TUF’s attempted acquisition of Bumble Bee Foods, which is on hold now while the U.S. Department of Justice conducts an antitrust investigation.

Other parties suing the companies and alleging price fixing include New York-based Olean Wholesale Grocery Cooperative, San Jose, Calif.-based Grocervice, Inc., otherwise knowns as PITCO foods, Affiliated Foods of Texas, sandwich shop Capitol Hill Supermarket, also known as Capitol City Supermarket, of Washington, D.C., and a consumer class-action suit brought on by Florida resident Beverly Youngblood. Like Youngblood, Mathews and Walnum are suing on behalf of themselves and other tuna consumers.

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