A U.S. District Court judge recently entered an order dismissing all class action lawsuits against the Cedar Shake & Shingle Bureau and other defendants regarding price-fixing claims, according to CSSB.
In February 2019, S&W Forest Products Ltd. filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Seattle against CSSB, Anbrook Industries Ltd. and Waldun Forest Products Ltd.
S&W Forest Products alleged it was wrongfully terminated as a CSSB Member in December 2018 in violation of U.S. antitrust laws because it had refused to join a price-fixing conspiracy led by CSSB, Anbrook Industries and Waldun Forest Products that included other CSSB Mill-Members.
Based on the allegations, four copycat class action lawsuits then were filed in U.S. District Courts in Seattle and New York City against CSSB, Anbrook Industries, Waldun Forest Products and G&R Cedar Ltd. alleging they and all CSSB Mill-Members other than S&W Forest products had been conspiring to fix their prices since at least 2011; the class action lawsuits were consolidated with the S&W Forest Products lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Seattle.
In August 2019, U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman entered an order dismissing S&W Forest Products’ antitrust claims because the company, among other reasons, was unable to allege any facts supporting its price-fixing allegations and other conspiracy allegations. In October 2019, CSSB and S&W Forest Products agreed to settle the original lawsuit, which was dismissed with prejudice. At that time, S&W Forest Products confirmed “no one at S&W has any personal knowledge of price fixing by anyone at CSSB or by any of CSSB’s Members, nor do they have any personal knowledge that CSSB or any of its Members ever participated in a conspiracy to fix prices.”
On Feb. 20, Pechman entered an order dismissing all the class action plaintiffs’ federal price-fixing claims against CSSB and the other defendants with prejudice, holding these plaintiffs also were unable to allege any direct or circumstantial evidence of price fixing by CSSB or any of its members, including Anbrook Industries, Waldun Forest Products and G&R Cedar Ltd. View the order.
As a result, each class action lawsuit has been dismissed.
