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Milk Price Fixing Class Action Filed Against Dairy Industry

Los Angeles, CA: An antitrust class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of consumers including Compassion Over Killing (COK) members, alleging that various dairy companies and trade groups, including the National Milk Producers Federation, Dairy Farmers of America, Land O’Lakes, Inc. and Agri-Mark, Inc. combined to form Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) in order to fix the price of milk in 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 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 complaint further alleges that the program, which paid smaller farm owners to kill their entire dairy cow herds, unfairly increased the profits of agribusiness giants.

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. The end of the program came shortly after Land O’Lakes agreed to pay $25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against the United Egg Producers and its members. That case alleged that egg producers were encouraged to reduce their flock size as part of a program disguised as an animal welfare initiative.

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Last updated on Sep-27-11