The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California has approved settlement agreements between plaintiffs StarKist and Bumble Bee in lawsuits related to alleged price-fixing of canned tuna.
End-payer and direct-purchaser plaintiffs sued Chicken of the Sea, Bumble Bee, and StarKist in the U.S. for their alleged connections to a price-fixing scheme for canned tuna.
The civil lawsuit came alongside multiple tuna companies being indicted on federal price-fixing charges that ultimately led to former Bumble Bee President and CEO Chris Lischewski being sentenced to 40 months in prison and millions of dollars in fines against StarKist and Bumble Bee.
Alongside the criminal lawsuit, a class-action suit targeted Chicken of the Sea, Bumble Bee, and StarKist, as well as their parent companies, for a total of up to USD 1 billion (EUR 954 million) in damages.
In 2019, a judge presiding over the case approved four separate tracks for the lawsuit, and in 2023, Chicken of the Sea and its parent company Thai Union agreed to pay USD 13 million (EUR 12.4 million) to settle the direct purchaser lawsuit, plus an additional USD 5.95 million (EUR 5.6 million) for legal fees and a maximum settlement of USD 20 million (EUR 19 million) to the end-payer plaintiffs – including USD 5 million (EUR 4.7 million) to cover legal fees. That total, according to recent court documents, ended up reaching USD 16.2 million (EUR 15.4 million).
Bumble Bee and its former owner Lion Capital, along with StarKist and its owner Dongwon Industries, also agreed to settle the case, as first revealed in a 25 June 2024 filing. At the time, the exact terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but later filings in August revealed over USD 200 million (EUR 190 million) in settlements.
Now, U.S. District Court Judge Dana M. Sabraw has ...
