Ruling favors GP, WestRock in antitrust case

A federal court in Chicago has reportedly upheld an earlier ruling that settled an antitrust suit against Georgia-based containerboard producers WestRock and Georgia-Pacific (GP). The suit had alleged the two firm—along with several others—conspired to fix prices. Now two different courts have found the companies were not colluding, but instead reacting similarly to recovered paper market pricing spikes.

According to an online article from the Chicago-based Cook County Record,  a ruling on Dec. 7 by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago found that “the defendants were engaged in self-interested but lawful oligopolistic behavior during the relevant period.”

The period in question ran from 2004 to 2010, with plaintiffs (containerboard users who produce boxes) having sued several containerboard manufacturers, including WestRock (and its predecessor companies); GP; Packaging Corporation of America; International Paper; Norampac Industries; Cascades Inc.; Weyerhaeuser Company; and Temple-Inland.

Plaintiffs accused those containerboard companies of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by conspiring to raise containerboard prices in “lockstep” while also scaling back production. The defendants other than GP and WestRock settled the suit, according to the Cook County Record.

In 2017, Chicago Federal District Judge Harry Leinenweber threw out the case that remained against GP and WestRock, claiming there is no proof the companies did anything wrong, finding their actions were consistent with permissible competition. The early December 2018 Seventh Circuit Court ruling upheld that finding.

"After six years of extensive discovery, more than a hundred depositions, and millions of documents produced in discovery, the statements that plaintiffs were able to gather simply are not incriminating,” Leinenweber stated as part of his ruling, according to the Record.

Seventh Circuit Court Judge Diane Wood added that “a close look at the record reveals that the [plaintiffs] overstated how coordinated these hikes actually were, and that “no evidence was given the companies tried to discipline fellow companies that did not hew the alleged cartel’s line”—which would be considered part of an anti-trust scheme.