Chinese Vitamin CIn re Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation, Master File 1:06-MD-1738 (DGT)(JO), E.D.N.Y. This is the first antitrust case in the U.S. against Chinese manufacturers. The plaintiffs allege that Chinese pharmaceutical companies Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Jiangsu Jiangshan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Northeast Pharmaceutical (Group) Co. Ltd., Weisheng Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shijiazhuang Pharmaceutical (USA), Inc., and China Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. conspired to fix prices and control export output of Vitamin C from December 1, 2001 to the present. Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, P.L.L.C. is Co-Lead Counsel for the plaintiffs. The case follows the historic Vitamins Litigation, MDL 1285, prosecuted against European and Japanese manufacturers of bulk vitamins, including Vitamin C, for anticompetitive conduct during the 1990s. As a result of that litigation, those manufacturing defendants paid billions in government fines and, as a result of CMHT's work as Co-Lead Counsel for the direct purchaser class plaintiffs, billions in civil settlements to plaintiffs. Chinese companies subsequently took over the Vitamin C market and now control approximately 90 percent of the Vitamin C market in the United States. The suit represents China's growing economic clout in the United States and has raised important new issues concerning the Chinese government's role in the defendants' pricing and output decisions of the Chinese manufacturing defendants. |
