StarKist Co., Bumble Bee Foods LLC and Tri-Union Seafoods LLC—the nation’s three largest producers of canned tuna—conspired to fix prices, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California (Olean Wholesale Grocery Cooperative Inc. v. Bumble Bee Foods LLC, S.D. Cal., 15-01714, complaint filed 8/3/15).
Olean Wholesale Grocery Cooperative Inc. filed the action on Aug. 3 on behalf of a putative class of purchasers claiming that the packaged seafood market is an oligopoly dominated by the three defendants, which used their market power to collude on pricing.
This collusion is ...