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#so hey i guess the world isn't complete bullshit even if the settlement money really shoulda been higher
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Hey so remember how grocery prices suddenly jackknifed during lockdown and never went back down?
Well turns out the companies would have done that shit either way and had been steadily price-fixing for the last decade!
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson just announced more than $40 million in court-ordained Fuck You money from massive swaths of food production companies are to be paid out to households earning at or below 175% of the federal poverty level ($25.5k for 1 person, $34.5k for 2 people households) before Dec 31st of this year. Happy Holidays.
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"The bottom line here is that my legal team took on two large corporate price-fixing conspiracies that increased the cost for groceries for Washington families. We've prevailed, and as a result, we are sending checks to over 400,000 Washington households."
Cannot stress enough the extent of the conspiracies he's talking about here. 15 out of the total 19 chicken producers got nailed in this lawsuit. Not the total number of conspirators, mind, just the ones who left enough evidence for the AG to kick their ass in so expedient a manner. Make no mistake, all 19 were in on it. The court case against the rest of them has been delayed until October of next year, though. None of them are making it out unscathed.
Tuna didn't escape antitrust horseshit either, because the CEOs of Starkist, Chicken of the Sea, and Bumblebee Tuna had a fucking group chat where they complained that the price of tuna was "too low" and they agreed to artificially inflate the price.
“What’s so maddening about the conduct of these companies is the reason that they engaged in this price-fixing conspiracy was greed. They wanted to make money."
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So anyway the AG who nailed their asses to the wall and continues to do so is running for governor. If you live in Washington, could be worth your vote when primary season rolls around.
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