Prominent Michigan-based retailer Meijer filed a lawsuit on 16 February accusing some of the largest canned tuna companies in the world of colluding to price-fix.
The grocer joins a slew of other U.S.-based chains such as Publix, Wegman’s Food Markets, Kroger, Albertsons, Hy-Vee and H.E. Butt (HEB), in its allegations. The lawsuit is being brought against familiar entities: Bumble Bee Foods, StarKist Company, Dongwon Industries, Tri-Union Seafoods, Chicken of the Sea International and Thai Union Frozen Products.
Similar to the lawsuits filed by other retailers, Meijer alleges that the tuna companies had been conspiring to fix tuna prices since 2010, and continued to do so until at least July of last year. "During this period, there was a large increase in the supply of canning-grade tuna coupled with decreasing US demand for canned tuna,” stated Meijer’s court documents. As such, tuna prices should have gone down, argued Meijer – however, prices instead increased significantly.
"In this environment, defendants’ and their co-conspirators’ canned tuna price increases and resistance to normal supply-demand pressures would have been against their self-interest unless they were colluding,” the lawsuit concluded.
Meijer operates 223 store and superstore locations across the U.S. Midwest including in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Wisconsin.
Read up on some of the other price-fixing lawsuits here:
