Chocolate Companies Come Under Scrutiny for Price Fixing
January 16, 2008
Choco-giants Hershey, Nestle, Cadbury and Mars have come under scrutiny from the U.S. and Canada over allegations of price fixing. The companies have already handed over documents to the Canadian authorities, and Bloomberg reported back in December ‘07 that U.S. antitrust investigators were looking into the allegations as well. While no government charges have been handed down, three law-suits have been filed against Hershey, Mars and Nestle by consumers and suppliers, based on the investigations, and all three are seeking class action status. This comes at a very inopportune time for the chocolate industry because apparently there is an international “cocoa deficit” right now, hiking the price of cocoa to its highest levels since 2003.
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