In re Packaged Ice Antitrust Litigation: Seeger Weiss LLP - COMMERCIAL DISPUTES GROUP

The Firm represents direct purchasers of packaged ice in a proposed class action brought against the five American and Canadian manufacturers and distributors who possess the dominant share of the $2.5 billion per year packaged ice industry in North America. The firm has been appointed Co-Chair of the Class Certification Committee in that litigation. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants have violated the antitrust laws by conspiring to fix prices and allocate market share for packaged ice. The U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division commenced an investigation into the packaged ice industry sometime prior to March 2008 and grand jury subpoenas were issued to the Defendants. In the civil litigation in which the Firm is involved, motions to transfer the various related lawsuits filed against the Defendants for coordinated pretrial proceedings were argued before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on May 29, 2008, and the JPML recently ordered the litigation centralized in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit), the venue that Seeger Weiss LLP had advocated.