Case Details

Year Initiated/Committed

1991

Year Resolved

1995

Settlement Amount

$13 million

Court

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida

Docket Number

MDL 878; Case No. 91-40002-MP

Lead State

FL

Participating States

FL

Defendant(s)

Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, American Home Products Corporation

Case Description

Florida sought damages and injunctive relief, alleging that Abbott and Bristol-Myers conspired to fix the prices and monopolize the market for infant formula. The complaint further alleged that Abbott and Bristol-Myers created barriers to entry into the infant formula industry through their ‘traditional marketing’ practices of persuading hospitals and physicians to endorse their infant formula products to patients in exchange for free products, grants and other benefits. Parents who received free samples had the wrong impression that the physicians were prescribing such formula to them, thus discouraging price-comparison shopping by consumers and limiting effective competition by other manufacturers. The Defendant companies agreed to a permanent injunction preventing them from price fixing and preventing them from creating barriers to entry into the market, as well as $13 million. Note: Texas later brought a separate suit against the infant formula companies in 1995. The case settled for $250,000 in addition to $1 million in free product.