OMAHA, Neb. (Legal Newsline) – An Egyptian food retailer is suing a Nebraska-based meat packing company over an alleged email security breach and allegations that it shipped contaminated beef.
Prime Foods for Processing and Trading, registered and licensed to do business in Egypt, filed suit Feb. 13 in U.S. District Court of Nebraska against Greater Omaha Packing Co. Inc., asking the court for "no less than $200,000" and other damages.
Prime Foods alleges in its 14-page complaint, Prime Foods that Greater Omaha Packing negligently allowed "a fraudulent third party" to "commit fraud against plaintiff Prime Foods" in the company's existing online product ordering process in 2017.
The alleged scam included diverting funds intended for Prime Foods to be paid instead to the third party.
"Based on the inconspicuously similar email address along with copious information only obtainable from defendant Greater Omaha Packing Co. Inc.'s confidential commercial information, plaintiff Prime Foods sent a wire transfer to the bank account information provided on the fraudulent proforma invoices," the complaint said.
Prime Foods alleges it incurred more than $104,000 in damages from the alleged scam.
In the contaminated beef shipment allegations, Prime Foods alleges Greater Omaha Packing breached implied warranties after a third-party vendor tested shipped beef and found it "to be unfit for human consumption," the complaint said.
The alleged shipment of contaminated raw beef products was discovered in August 2018, according to the complaint. The suit states the plaintiff had to destroy the goods and it incurred more than $80,000 in overhead and labor damages, in addition to "business interruption, lost profits (both past and future), and loss of goodwill," the complaint said.
Prime Food's complaint against Greater Omaha Packing Co. includes two counts of negligence and breaches of implied warranties of merchantability and for fitness for a particular purpose, particularly in the contaminated shipped beef allegation.
"When the contract for sale was made, plaintiff purchased the Greater Omaha Packing Co. Inc. beef products for the particular purpose of reselling the beef products to local Egyptian food vendors for human consumption," the complaint said. "Greater Omaha Packing Co. Inc. knew of this particular purpose."
The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Michael D. Nelson.
Washington, D.C. attorney Faisal Gill filed the case on behalf of Prime Foods under case number 8:19-cv-00073.