San Diego, California, U.S.A.-based Chicken of the Sea International, a division of Thai Union, has reached out-of-court settlement agreements with grocery chain Wegmans and wholesaler Krasdale Foods in civil suits alleging price-fixing in the canned tuna sector.
Notices of the settlements were filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California on 26 July. Terms of the agreements were not released.
Chicken of the Sea has been aggressive in its attempts to reach settlements with companies who allege they were harmed by the price-fixing scandal, which was exposed by Chicken of the Sea in its role as a whistleblower in the case. Chicken of the Sea International Vice President and General Counsel Christianna Reed criticized holdout companies who refused to negotiate a deal with the company to end their lawsuits.
"It is … an unfortunate reality that litigants who continue to pursue aggressive, unrealistic negotiation tactics are putting an iconic American seafood brand and American jobs at risk,” she said in January 2019.
Rochester, New York, U.S.A.-based Wegmans Food Markets operates 99 stores in the mid-Atlantic and New England regions of the United States. Krasdale Foods, based in White Plains, New York, U.S.A., is an independent grocery wholesaler supplying 300 supermarkets in the U.S. Northeast and Florida, with a focus on New York City.
