SEATTLE -- A Seattle law firm is taking on dairies, claiming that a price-fixing scheme has consumers paying too much for milk.
The class-action lawsuit accuses companies of slaughtering thousands of cows just to decrease supply.
Animal rights group Compassion Over Killing was the first to uncover the alleged systematic slaughter of healthy dairy cows in California. The group turned to Seattle attorney Steve Berman, who filed the suit claiming more than half a million U.S. dairy cows were slaughtered over seven years to artificially reduce the supply of milk and drive up prices.
"The cooperatives got together and instituted what we'll call a killing program; they retired cows," he said. Berman said the milk producers called it "dairy herd retirement", but he insists it was a way to cheat consumers and line their own pockets.
"Using their own numbers, we calculated conservatively that (they) raised the price of milk over a seven-year period by $10 billion," Berman said.
Berman said all milk products - everything from cheese to butter - got more expensive. His firm sued Cooperatives Working Together, its members are dairy companies and trade groups.
CWT, in a written statement, said:
"The program was designed and has always been operated in a manner fully consistent with the anti-trust laws of the United States. The lawsuit filed yesterday in California at the instigation of a west coast animal rights group is without merit. National Milk Producers will vigorously defend its actions and those of its member cooperatives and their producers in this lawsuit and expect that those actions will ultimately be vindicated.”
"You can not get together and agree to stabilize and maintain prices," said Berman. "That is the bedrock principle of our antitrust laws."
Berman says Compassion Over Killing uncovered documents that appear to link the cooperative's herd retirement to milk prices.
"Everyone drinks milk and according to their own documents we believe everyone paid more than they should have," he said.
The cooperative stopped using the dairy herd retirement program at the end of 2010, Berman said.
When asked if that was true, the cooperative referred KOMO News to its written statement and made no other comment on the advice of its legal counsel.
The class-action lawsuit accuses companies of slaughtering thousands of cows just to decrease supply.
Animal rights group Compassion Over Killing was the first to uncover the alleged systematic slaughter of healthy dairy cows in California. The group turned to Seattle attorney Steve Berman, who filed the suit claiming more than half a million U.S. dairy cows were slaughtered over seven years to artificially reduce the supply of milk and drive up prices.
"The cooperatives got together and instituted what we'll call a killing program; they retired cows," he said. Berman said the milk producers called it "dairy herd retirement", but he insists it was a way to cheat consumers and line their own pockets.
"Using their own numbers, we calculated conservatively that (they) raised the price of milk over a seven-year period by $10 billion," Berman said.
Berman said all milk products - everything from cheese to butter - got more expensive. His firm sued Cooperatives Working Together, its members are dairy companies and trade groups.
CWT, in a written statement, said:
"The program was designed and has always been operated in a manner fully consistent with the anti-trust laws of the United States. The lawsuit filed yesterday in California at the instigation of a west coast animal rights group is without merit. National Milk Producers will vigorously defend its actions and those of its member cooperatives and their producers in this lawsuit and expect that those actions will ultimately be vindicated.”
"You can not get together and agree to stabilize and maintain prices," said Berman. "That is the bedrock principle of our antitrust laws."
Berman says Compassion Over Killing uncovered documents that appear to link the cooperative's herd retirement to milk prices.
"Everyone drinks milk and according to their own documents we believe everyone paid more than they should have," he said.
The cooperative stopped using the dairy herd retirement program at the end of 2010, Berman said.
When asked if that was true, the cooperative referred KOMO News to its written statement and made no other comment on the advice of its legal counsel.
