{"id":2973,"date":"2023-04-07T17:58:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T17:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/brazil-prosecutors-seek-2-5\/"},"modified":"2023-04-07T18:00:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T18:00:29","slug":"brazil-prosecutors-seek-2-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/brazil-prosecutors-seek-2-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil prosecutors seek $2.5 billion in damages from alleged orange juice cartel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Ricardo Brito<\/p>\n<p>(Reuters) -Giants of the orange juice trade in Brazil have become defendants in a class-action lawsuit seeking $2.5 billion in damages over an alleged scheme to fix prices between 1999 and 2006, a prosecutor told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Federal Prosecutor Karen Kahn said the Sao Paulo Court of Justice will hear claims in a lawsuit filed against firms including Citrosuco, Cutrale and Louis Dreyfus Co (LDC), which account for most of the world&#8217;s orange juice output.<\/p>\n<p>Citrus growers alleged that the companies formed a cartel to keep prices low for their fruit. Brazil&#8217;s antitrust regulator Cade investigated, and in 2016, the watchdog and companies reached an agreement for a payment of 301 million reais to settle the case.<\/p>\n<p>The class-action lawsuit was filed by the prosecutors in March, more than 20 years after the first accusations were made. <\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors are seeking 12.7 billion reais ($2.51 billion) in damages, exceeding annual revenue from orange juice exports in the 2021\/2022 season, which totaled $1.62 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The suit seeks reparation from the companies that prosecutors say dominated almost 80% of domestic orange juice production, excluding around 75% of the small and medium-sized firms in the segment in Sao Paulo state alone.<\/p>\n<p>In the lawsuit, prosecutors alleged the goal of the cartel was to cause a steep drop in fruit prices, inflicting losses on the farmers and consumers.    <\/p>\n<p>Louis Dreyfus Co said it was not officially notified of the lawsuit and denied wrongdoing, saying it complies with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries where it operates.<\/p>\n<p>Citrosuco told Reuters it has not been notified about the lawsuit and would not comment.<\/p>\n<p>Cutrale did not comment immediately. Cargill declined to comment at this time.<\/p>\n<p>The claims also implicate Cargill, which sold operations to Cutrale and Citrosuco in 2004, and Citrovita, which merged with Citrosuco in a deal approved by regulators in 2011, according to the prosecutor.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Ricardo Brito; Writing by Peter FrontiniEditing by Ana Mano, Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/brazil-prosecutors-seek-2-5\/a-worker-loads-a-truck-with-crates-of-oranges-at-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ350UG-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ350UG-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ricardo Brito (Reuters) -Giants of the orange juice trade in Brazil have become defendants in a class-action lawsuit seeking $2.5 billion in damages over an alleged scheme to fix prices between 1999 and 2006, a prosecutor told Reuters. Federal Prosecutor Karen Kahn said the Sao Paulo Court of Justice will hear claims in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-2973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ350UG-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2973"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3568,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions\/3568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}