HAGENS BERMAN

Date Filed: September 26, 2011
Court: U.S. District Court
Location: California

Hagens Berman has filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit against several large players in the dairy industry, including the National Milk Producers Federation, Dairy Farmers of America, Land O’Lakes, Inc., Agri-Mark, Inc. and Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) alleging that the groups conspired to fix the price of milk throughout the United States.

CWT is a massive trade group representing dairy producers throughout the country who produce nearly 70 percent of the milk consumed in the United States.

The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on Sept. 26, 2011, alleges that between 2003 and 2010, more than 500,000 cows were slaughtered prematurely under CWT’s dairy herd retirement program in a concerted effort to reduce the supply of milk and inflate its price nationally. According to the complaint, the increased price allowed CWT members to earn more than $9 billion in additional revenue.

The case was initially researched and developed by Compassion Over Killing, a national animal protection organization.

Dairy herd retirement ended in the summer of 2010, but CWT’s tactics may affect the price of milk for years, according to the lawsuit. Hagens Berman is interested in speaking to consumers who purchased milk or milk products from 2004 to the present. Consumers can contact the firm by online by clicking here.

Compassion Over Killing has released additional information about the case, which can be found at http://www.cok.net/camp/inv/dairy-price-fixing.