From Bloomberg Law: Kellogg, Kraft Win Price-Fixing Suit Against Egg Companies

Another example of market failure and the use of governmental power to address it.

Notice that one set of businesses were brought down by another set. The general public may not be in a position to successfully address these issues legally.

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General Mills Inc., a Kraft Heinz Co. unit, Kellogg Co., and Nestle SA for years likely overpaid for eggs because the nation’s largest producers and two trade groups conspired to restrict the supply, an Illinois federal jury decided on Tuesday.

A US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois jury of nine men and three women said the two largest US egg producers, Cal-Maine Foods Inc. and Rose Acre Farms Inc., along with two egg-industry trade groups, will have to pay damages to the food companies.

The same jury will decide the amount of damages in a trial scheduled to begin Nov. 29 that is expected to last two days. By law, whatever damages the jury awards will be trebled, though the jury will not be told about that statutory requirement.

The case outcome in favor of the food companies could embolden other plaintiffs who are seeking to go after food producers for anticompetitive behavior.

Now comes the appeal, this could be overturned by the Supreme Court.

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“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
 ― Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

- Adam Smith on the Inevitability of Price Fixing.