LGN represents end payor plaintiffs who purchased, paid for, and/or provided reimbursement for Zetia, a blockbuster cholesterol drug that counteracts plaque development in arteries. This action is pending in the United States District Court for the District of Virginia before the Honorable Rebecca Beach Smith.
LGN represents plaintiffs who allege that Kraft Foods and Mondelez Global manipulated cash wheat prices and wheat futures contracts. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois certified the plaintiff class in January 2020. The case is pending before the Honorable John F. Ness and is proceeding toward trial.
LGN represents end payor plaintiffs who allege that a drug company entered into unlawful agreements with two other drug companies not to compete in the market for Seroquel XR and corresponding generic versions. This action is pending in the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York before the Honorable Colleen McMahon.
LGN represents a class of merchants that accepted Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards in the United States. Plaintiffs allege that Visa, MasterCard and their member banks conspired to impose and maintain interchange fees, or “swipe fees,” on merchants as a condition of using their cards. In December 2019, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York approved a settlement between the plaintiff monetary relief class and all defendants for over $6 billion. Some members of the monetary relief class have appealed the District Court’s approval of the settlement, and that appeal is pending.
LGN represents end payor plaintiffs who allege that seafood producers colluded for more than a decade to raise prices and restrict supply of packaged tuna across the United States. The cases are pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California before the Honorable Janis L. Sammartino.
LGN represents end payor plaintiffs who allege that drug companies entered into an anticompetitive scheme to restrain competition in the market for Humira and its biosimilar competitors. This action is pending in the United States District Court of the Northern District of Illinois before the Honorable Manish S. Shah.
LGN serves on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for a class of end payer purchasers of certain generic prescription drugs. We allege that manufacturers conspired to fix the prices of more than 150 different generic drugs. The action is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania before the Honorable Cynthia Rufe.
LGN serves on the Executive Committee in a proposed class action lawsuit against drug manufacturer Gilead and other major drug manufacturers including Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Meyers Squibb and others. We allege that these drug manufacturers knowingly colluded to raise the price of anti-HIV drugs and as a result, they illegally raised the price of treatment for approximately 1 million people in the U.S. currently living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV) infection. The case is pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California before the Honorable Edward M. Chen.
On January 26, 2021, the antitrust team at Lockridge Grindal Nauen P.L.L.P., along with the team at Shindler, Anderson, Goplerud & Weese P.C., filed an antitrust class action lawsuit on behalf of our client and purchasers of Crop Inputs (seeds and crop protection chemicals, such as fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides, used by farmers). The lawsuit alleges anticompetitive conduct by major Crop Inputs manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, by, among other things, jointly boycotting companies that would have introduced lower prices of Crop Inputs through online sales. As a result of the anticompetitive conduct, purchasers, such as American farmers, have paid artificially high prices for Crop Inputs.
Background
The market for Crop Inputs is dominated by four major manufacturers (Bayer CropScience Inc., Corteva Inc., Syngenta Corp., and BASF Corp.), three large wholesalers that control the distribution of Crop Inputs to purchasers (Cargill Inc., Winfield Solutions, LLC, and Univar Solutions, Inc.), and retailers (including CHS Inc., Nutrien Ag Solutions Inc., GROWMARK, Inc., Simplot AB Retail Sub, Tenkoz Inc., and Federated Co-operatives Ltd.). The existing distribution and sale process for Crop Inputs is structured to maximize opacity and deny purchasers access to objective pricing data and product information needed to make informed purchasing decisions about the Crop Inputs.
Recently, electronic Crop Inputs sales platforms have launched to provide a cheaper and more transparent way for purchasers to buy Crop Inputs, and circumvent the existing opaque and convoluted distribution system. These electronic platforms threaten the manufacturers’, wholesalers’, and retailers’ dominant market position and control over Crop Inputs pricing. This lawsuit alleges that the manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers conspired to block the electronic platforms’ access to the Crop Inputs market by engaging in group boycott to deny the electronic platforms of products to sell.
Were you affected by the alleged Crop Inputs conspiracy?
You may have overpaid if you purchased a Crop Input between 2014 and today, and the Crop Input was manufactured by any of the following companies: Bayer CropScience Inc., Corteva Inc., Syngenta Corp., or BASF Corp.
If you would like to discuss your legal options, please contact Joe Bruckner (wjbruckner@locklaw.com), Rob Shelquist (rkshelquist@locklaw.com), Brian Clark (bdclark@locklaw.com), or Rebecca Peterson (rapeterson@locklaw.com), or at 612-339-6900.
01-26-2021
Class Action Complaint
In December 2019, Lockridge Grindal Nauen filed an antitrust class action on behalf of our clients alleging that the nation’s largest turkey producers colluded to restraint turkey production, knowing that such an artificial supply restriction would lead to higher prices. On October 19, 2020, Judge Virginia M. Kendall of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied all but one defendant’s motions to dismiss the complaint, and upheld the allegations in our complaint. Now we will move forward with discovery from the defendants to prove our allegations and support our upcoming motion for class certification.
Background
The turkey producers named as defendants in this case are Butterball LLC, Cargill, Inc., Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., Cooper Farms, Inc., Farbest Foods, Inc., Hormel Foods Corp., Hormel Foods, LLC, House of Raeford Farms, Inc., Kraft Heinz Foods Company, Kraft Foods Brands, LLC, Perdue Farms, Inc., Perdue Foods, LLC, Tyson Foods, Inc., Hillshire Brands Company, Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc., and Tyson Prepared Foods, Inc.
Plaintiffs allege that beginning no later than 2010, turkey producers acted together to artificially reduce the supply of turkey for sale in the United States, knowing that a reduced supply would increase prices. Defendants coordinated their supply reductions by sharing confidential production information with one another through Agri Stats, an information sharing service. As a result, from at least 2010 to 2017, turkey prices were artificially inflated. On June 16, 2020, Judge Virginia M. Kendall appointed Lockridge Grindal Nauen as interim co-lead counsel in this matter. Judge Kendall dismissed Kraft Foods from the action in her October 19, 2020 order, but the case will proceed against all other defendants.
Were you affected by the alleged turkey conspiracy?
If you purchased turkey between 2010 and 2017 from any of the above companies or their subsidiaries, you may have overpaid.
If you would like to discuss your legal options, please contact Joe Bruckner or Brian Clark at wjbruckner@locklaw.com, bdclark@locklaw.com, or at 612-339-6900.
10-19-2020
Order Denying in Part and Granting in Part Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss
12-19-2019
Complaint – Olean Wholesale v Agri Stats
12-20-2019
Article – Lawsuit alleges turkey companies conspired to keep prices high | FERN’s Ag Insider
Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP
100 Washington Avenue South
Suite 2200
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401-2159
Phone: 612-339-6900
Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP
1165 N. Clark Street
Suite 700
Chicago, IL 60610
Phone: 312-205-8968
Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP
265 Franklin Street
Suite 1702
Boston, MA 02110
Phone: 617-535-3763
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
Accept settingsHide notification onlySettingsWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refuseing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds: