The giants of the orange juice trade in Brazil have become defendants in a class action seeking billions of dollars in damages for a price-fixing scheme that operated between 1999 and 2006, a prosecutor told Reuters.
Federal prosecutor Karen Kahn said the Sao Paulo Court of Justice will hear claims in a lawsuit filed against firms such as Citrosuco, Cutrale and Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), which account for most of the country’s global orange juice production. .
The alleged cartel harmed citrus growers and was investigated by Brazil’s antitrust regulator Cade. In 2016, the regulator and the companies reached an agreement for a payment of 301 million reais to resolve the case.
The class action lawsuit was filed by prosecutors in March, more than 20 years after the first allegations were made.
Prosecutors are seeking 12.7 billion reais ($2.51 billion) in damages, exceeding the annual revenue from orange juice exports in the 2021/2022 season, which amounted to $1.62 billion.
The lawsuit seeks redress from companies that prosecutors say dominated nearly 80% of national orange juice production, excluding around 75% of small and medium-sized companies in the segment in Sao Paulo state alone.
In the lawsuit, prosecutors alleged that the cartel’s objective was to cause a sharp drop in fruit prices, causing losses to farmers and consumers.
Citrosuco and Cutrale did not immediately comment, while Cargill declined to comment.
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