In May, after seven years of litigation in Brooklyn federal district court, Chinese vitamin C manufacturer Aland (Jiangsu) Nutraceutical Co. Ltd. agreed to pay $10.5 million to settle civil antitrust claims. The proposed settlement, which at press time was still subject to approval from a federal district judge, is notable more for its novelty than its size: This marks the first time that a Chinese company has agreed to pay to dispose of civil charges in a U.S. antitrust cartel case. What’s more, in the first price-fixing settlement with a company from mainland China, the U.S. Department of Justice is notably absent. The enforcement effort that brought Aland to the settlement table was headed up entirely by the private antitrust bar, a fact that baffles some of the veteran attorneys who have been pursuing the case.
The case dates back to 2005, when plaintiffs colead counsel at Hausfeld LLP; Boies, Schiller & Flexner; and Susman Godfrey filed multiple suits on behalf of direct purchasers of vitamin C accusing Aland and three other Chinese companies of colluding to fix prices in the market. Those suits were consolidated in multidistrict litigation with cases brought by indirect purchaser plaintiffs who are represented in the case by Gustafson Gluek, Straus & Boies, and Saveri & Saveri.
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