A group of major packaging manufacturers, including International Paper and Packaging Corporation of America, has been hit with a federal antitrust lawsuit alleging a coordinated scheme to inflate prices for containerboard materials used in products like cardboard boxes and retail displays.\n\nAccording to Reuters, the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, claims the defendants orchestrated a series of parallel price increases that began in late 2020 and collectively raised costs by approximately 30%. The suit was brought by Artuso Pastry Foods Corp, a Mt. Vernon, New York-based business, which is seeking to represent a nationwide class of buyers that may include hundreds of thousands of businesses.\n\nThe complaint targets several major industry players, including Georgia-Pacific, Greif, Smurfit Westrock, and Graphic Packaging, in addition to International Paper and Packaging Corporation of America. Per Reuters, the lawsuit accuses these companies of implementing \"numerous unprecedented and unjustified price increases,\" often in near-perfect synchrony, which it says constitutes a violation of U.S. antitrust law.\n\nContainerboard, the focus of the lawsuit, is the raw material used to produce a variety of common goods such as moving boxes, pizza packaging, and office storage containers. Plaintiffs argue that price hikes in this market far outpaced what would be expected given a relatively modest increase in demand. In fact, the complaint notes that even as demand began to decline in recent years, prices continued to rise, contrary to typical market behavior.

Federal Judge Certifies NCAA Tennis Antitrust Lawsuit as Class Action

A federal antitrust lawsuit has been filed against major packaging manufacturers, including International Paper and Georgia-Pacific, alleging they colluded to inflate containerboard prices, which are used in products like cardboard boxes. The lawsuit, certified as a class action, seeks to represent hundreds of thousands of businesses affected by the price hikes.