Twenty-nine mid-sized and large retailers have reached a settlement with Thai Union Group’s Tri-Union Seafoods, the owner of the Chicken of the Sea tuna brand, which accused the company of conspiring to fix prices at an artificially high level.
The settlement, announced in a press release from the tuna canner, follows the plaintiffs’ notice to a California federal court in December that they were dropping their lawsuits. As per the settlement, Tri-Union will pay an undisclosed sum of cash and work with the companies on the “promotion of innovative Chicken of the Sea products”, it said.
Tri-Union representatives have said they want to settle the many price-fixing lawsuits against the company and focus on growing flagging sales of canned tuna.
“We greatly value our retail partners and we are pleased this matter is resolved,” Darren Parsons, Tri-Union’s vice president of retail sales and business development said in a Jan 9 press release. “The agreement ensures that, together with our partners, we can continue to provide customers the healthy, sustainably sourced seafood products they expect from us.”
Christianna Reed, Chicken of the Sea’s vice president and general counsel called the settlement a “significant achievement” in a press release.
“We are also hopeful it will encourage any remaining litigants to put posturing aside and work with us to find pragmatic solutions that reflect the industry’s challenging market realities. It is also 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 May, Thai Union settled a separate lawsuit brought by major customer Walmart and indicated that more settlements could follow.
The company has set aside $44 million for this purpose, it said in August.
Civil lawsuits from dozens of wholesalers, retailers and individuals across the US allege that the plaintiffs were overcharged by a long-running price-fixing conspiracy involving Tri-Union, Bumble Bee and Dongwon Enterprises’ StarKist & Co.
Those suits have all been consolidated under the oversight of San Diego, California-based federal judge Janis Sammartino.
The civil lawsuits began in 2015 amid an investigation into the US tuna sector into alleged price-fixing that spun out of the department’s antitrust review for Thai Union’s attempt to acquire Bumble Bee.
Thai Union’s COSI, which in April reached a settlement in the civil lawsuit filed by large retailer Walmart, acted as a whistleblower to the U S Department of Justice (DOJ) informing on the alleged industry collusion in exchange for amnesty from prosecution.
Bumble Bee, meanwhile, has entered a guilty plea to price fixing charges. The company agreed to pay a $25m criminal fine, which will increase to a maximum criminal fine of $81.5m, payable by a related entity, in the event of a sale of the company subject to certain terms and conditions.
Two of the company’s executives, Kenneth Worsham and Walter Cameron, have pleaded guilty to price-fixing charges but have yet to be sentenced.
Bumble Bee CEO Christopher Lischewski has been indicted by the DOJ in connection with the probe but has maintained his innocence and has stepped down temporarily to contest the allegations.
StarKist’s Stephen Hodge, a former senior vice president of sales at the company, has also pleaded guilty but has yet to be sentenced. The company has also said it will plead guilty but has yet to be sentenced.
