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Pastimes : Where the GIT's are going -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ish who wrote (56810)	4/22/2003 7:36:27 AM
From: sandintoes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 225578

More wrong doings under the Clinton watch! Price-fixing suits involving box makers go forward Wire reports WASHINGTON -- Georgia-Pacific Corp., Smurfit-Stone Container Corp., Weyerhaeuser Co. and other corrugated box makers lost a U.S. Supreme Court bid to fend off class-action claims that they fixed prices in the early 1990s. Two lawsuits claim a dozen companies conspired from October 1993 to November 1995 to raise prices on corrugated boxes and the linerboard used to make them. The justices refused to hear the box makers' argument that a federal appeals court wrongly let the suits proceed as class actions representing hundreds of corporate customers. "If this judgment stands, an entire industry may potentially face a nationwide damages action," lawyers for the companies said in court papers. The plaintiffs are seeking triple damages under antitrust law. The suits say the companies began a conspiracy in 1993 after prices fell for five years during a time of increasing demand. Companies cut production of linerboard, a major component of corrugated cardboard, so that inventories fell to the lowest level in 20 years, the suits claim. Linerboard prices rose from $270 to $290 a ton in 1993 to $530 a ton in 1995, the suits say. The suits claim that Roger Stone, president of Stone Container Corp., coordinated an industrywide cut in production. Jefferson Smurfit and Stone Container merged in 1998 to create Chicago-based Smurfit-Stone Container. Other defendants include Packaging Corporation of America and International Paper Co. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said Temple-Inland Inc. and its Gaylord Container Corp. unit have settled claims against them. Five companies that buy corrugated sheets or boxes sued in 1998 after Stone Container settled civil claims by the Federal Trade Commission that the company orchestrated an industrywide price increase. Stone Container paid no fines and denied the allegations. A federal judge in Philadelphia certified the suits as class actions representing all purchasers of corrugated boxes or sheets during the alleged conspiracy except those with contracts in which the purchase price wasn't tied to the price of linerboard.