Payments have begun going out in the $152.2 million Packaged Seafood Products Antitrust Litigation settlement. Here's what happened, where we are in the process and what to expect next. The settlement resolves claims that major tuna producers, including StarKist, DWI and the Lion companies, conspired to raise or fix the prices of packaged tuna products sold in the United States.
Settlement administrators announced that they began issuing payments for approved claims on September 8. As money reaches consumers, some recipients have reported payouts of just over $100, while others on social media say they received several thousand dollars. "Shoppers may have paid more at the grocery store than they should have," Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek.
"These payments will be distributed from a $152.2 million fund that will be divided proportionally among approved claimants based on the amount of tuna they reported purchasing, so final checks could vary dramatically and appear to be substantially larger in some cases than the estimates consumers originally saw." Newsweek reached out to the settlement administrators and StarKist for comment via email. The case is one of the largest consumer antitrust settlements involving packaged seafood products in recent years. The settlement fund totals $152.2 million and covers eligible consumers who purchased canned or pouched tuna products during a multi-year period.
Now that payments are being distributed, many customers are trying to understand how individual awards were determined and why payment amounts vary significantly from one person to another. The litigation, formally known as Packaged Seafood Products Antitrust Litigation, stems from allegations that tuna manufacturers participated in an illegal conspiracy between June 2011 and July 2015 to raise or fix packaged tuna prices at artificially high levels. According to the settlement, plaintiffs alleged that packaged tuna producers engaged in anticompetitive conduct that harmed consumers who indirectly purchased canned or pouched tuna products.
The defendants, the tuna producers, denied many of the allegations but agreed to settlements to avoid further litigation and trial risks after years of litigation and appeals. Supreme Court declined to review the case in November 2022 after lower-court rulings favoring class certification. The deadline to file a claim was December 31, 2024.
According to the settlement administrator, consumers who had already filed a claim in the earlier COSI Settlement did not need to file an additional claim to receive payment. However, individuals who did not participate previously and failed to submit a valid claim by the deadline are not eligible to receive money from the settlement. The settlement website said that payments for approved claims were issued on Tuesday.
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