Scott Wagner and Lori Lustrin discuss with Law360 the new wave of antitrust cases emerging in the food and beverage industry.
Price-fixing cases over the past decade have read like a virtual electronics product materials list. Government investigators and civil plaintiffs have pursued actions involving a wide array of electronic parts ranging from passive components like capacitors and inverters to large, high-cost components such as LCDs and cathode ray tubes. Recently, however, a new wave of antitrust cases has emerged, and it looks far more like a grocery list.
It is now big food’s turn in the crosshairs of government regulators and civil plaintiffs. Indeed, over the past five years alone, high-profile price-fixing cases have been launched against the manufacturers of everything from milk, to mushrooms, to the biggest protein staples in the American diet: tuna, chicken and pork. And, in the past week alone, conspiracy claims have been lodged against manufacturers of beef and farm-raised salmon.
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