Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today that 24,492 claims checks will be sent to Washington residents in the coming week as a result of his antitrust lawsuits against chicken and tuna producers. These checks amount to an additional $2.59 million for eligible households throughout the state.
Ferguson had previously announced in December 2023 that his office would mail checks to hundreds of thousands of Washington households following successful antitrust lawsuits against large chicken and tuna corporations involved in price-fixing. The restitution is available to every household with an income at or below 175% of the federal poverty level. Today's claims checks are in addition to the original disbursement, targeting recipients who did not receive checks initially.
As of May 24, 273,080 households had cashed the initial checks sent out in December, totaling approximately $26.85 million for Washingtonians. An additional 2,980 households have received and cashed $301,810 in claims checks. The new batch of 24,492 claims checks will provide another $2.59 million to Washington households.
The deadline for filing a claim is next Wednesday, June 5. Eligible single-person households will receive $50 checks, while multi-person households will receive $120 checks. Claims can be filed at refundcheck.atg.wa.gov.
"My legal team took on multiple large price-fixing schemes that increased the cost of food for Washingtonians, and we’re putting money back in the pockets of those who were most impacted," Ferguson said. "Washington families were cheated by corporate price-fixing conspiracies they knew nothing about. Time is running out to get your fair share."
The restitution follows two separate antitrust lawsuits against broiler chicken producers and tuna companies alleging price-fixing and market manipulation to maximize profit.
In December, Ferguson began mailing restitution checks from resolutions totaling $35.5 million from chicken producer lawsuits and $5.1 million from tuna producer lawsuits.
Ferguson has resolved cases against all involved tuna companies and 16 out of 19 chicken companies named in the lawsuit; two remaining companies have since merged.
If the case against Foster Farms and Wayne-Sanderson Farms is resolved at trial, a judge will direct how those funds are used.
The cost to administer the claims process is being paid by defendants without using taxpayer funds. If enough claims are received, administration costs will be covered by the Antitrust Division's recoveries from other cases it brings forward.
The Attorney General’s Office asserts that chicken producers have driven up prices since at least 2008 through illegal coordination efforts including bid rigging and supply reductions to maximize profits—violating state antitrust laws.
Washington was the first state to hold these production companies accountable for their roles in this conspiracy with plans to use recoveries for consumer assistance each time a resolution was announced.
Ferguson's actions also resulted in over $5.1 million available for consumer restitution from major tuna companies including StarKist ($4.1 million), Chicken of the Sea ($500,000), former Bumble Bee Foods CEO Christopher Lischewski ($100,000), and sanctions against StarKist’s parent company Dongwon Industries ($450,000).
Executives from these companies coordinated secretly through calls, texts, private emails, and face-to-face meetings at pre-arranged locations such as hotels and restaurants to avoid detection while exchanging internal policies and data aimed at fixing canned tuna prices higher than normal market rates.
For more information on filing complaints about potential anticompetitive activity visit https://fortress.wa.gov/atg/formhandler/ago/AntitrustComplaint.aspx.
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