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Six foreign vitamin companies have agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement with Hawaii and other states to settle a lawsuit that accused them of conspiring to fix prices. Vitamin companies
settle lawsuitStar-Bulletin staff
Under the terms of the settlement, all 50 states and Puerto Rico will receive $28 million for overcharges paid by state governments for products containing vitamins. Hawaii's share will amount to more than $350,000.
An additional $107 million will be shared by Hawaii, 20 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico for programs that benefit and improve the health or nutrition of consumers or advance nutritional, dietary or agricultural science.
State Deputy Attorney General Rodney Kimura estimated that Hawaii's share will be a little more than $1 million after administrative costs are taken out. He said a distribution plan is still pending .
The lawsuit alleged the companies met in secret to fix prices from 1989 to 1998.
F. Hoffmann-La Roche of Switzerland, BASF of Germany; Aventis (formerly Rhone-Poulenc) of France and three Japanese companies -- Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd., Eisai Co. and Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co. -- took part in the settlement.
The agreement followed a $1.2 billion settlement last year with corporate buyers that accused the same vitamin makers of overcharging for bulk purchases.