Really Milkin' It: Dean Foods Defends Market Power in Lawsuits All Over U.S.
The National Law Journal
Tresa Baldas
1/29/2010
Looks like federal and private antitrust regulators have milk on the brain. Dean Foods Co., the nation's largest dairy processor, is now defending three antitrust lawsuits, the latest one in Wisconsin. While private suits are pending in Tennessee and Vermont brought by dairy farmers, the latest accuser is the federal government.
Benjamin Brown of Washington's Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, who is representing plaintiffs in the Vermont litigation, said the latest case should signal a warning to the dairy industry. "Private and public antitrust enforcers are all in agreement that there isn't true competition in the United States markets for milk," said Brown, who is pursuing a class action on behalf of a group of dairy farmers against Dean Foods and the Dairy Farmers of America. That lawsuit, filed in October, accuses the entities of monopolizing milk distribution and price fixing in the Northeast.
While the Midwest lawsuit differs, Brown said, it carries a common theme: that Dean Foods "has acquired its market power illegally."
"At the core of the suits is market power and pricing power that Dean Foods exerts," Brown said.