Cardboard Box Giants Accused of Price-Fixing in Federal Antitrust Suit

According to Reuters, the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, claims the defendants orchestrated a series of parallel price increases that began in late 2020 and collectively raised costs by approximately 30%. The suit was brought by Artuso Pastry Foods Corp, a Mt. Vernon, New York-based business, which is seeking to represent a nationwide class of buyers that may include hundreds of thousands of businesses.

The complaint targets several major industry players, including Georgia-Pacific, Greif, Smurfit Westrock, and Graphic Packaging, in addition to International Paper and Packaging Corporation of America. Per Reuters, the lawsuit accuses these companies of implementing “numerous unprecedented and unjustified price increases,” often in near-perfect synchrony, which it says constitutes a violation of U.S. antitrust law.

Read more: Dairy Cooperatives Agree to $34.4 Million Settlement in Price-Fixing Case

Containerboard, the focus of the lawsuit, is the raw material used to produce a variety of common goods such as moving boxes, pizza packaging, and office storage containers. Plaintiffs argue that price hikes in this market far outpaced what would be expected given a relatively modest increase in demand. In fact, the complaint notes that even as demand began to decline in recent years, prices continued to rise, contrary to typical market behavior.

Source: Reuters