Reuters: Regulatory News: UPDATE 1-U.S. court revives Stora Enso paper price-fixing case

Reuters: Regulatory News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 1-U.S. court revives Stora Enso paper price-fixing case Aug 6th 2012, 17:40 Mon Aug 6, 2012 1:40pm EDT * Stora Enso unit to face antitrust claims - court * Case against parent properly dismissed * Jury acquitted Stora Enso unit in 2007 By Jonathan Stempel Aug 6 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court in New York revived an antitrust lawsuit in which purchasers of coated paper used in magazines and catalogs accused a unit of Finland's Stora Enso Oyj of conspiring with a rival to fix prices. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Monday that a Connecticut federal judge erred in his December 2010 dismissal of the civil case against Stora Enso North America Corp, which had previously been acquitted of criminal price-fixing charges. It said a jury could reasonably find the Stora Enso unit had illegally conspired from August 2002 to January 2004 with Finland's UPM-Kymmene Oyj to inflate the price of "publication paper" used in magazines such as Time and Reader's Digest and catalogs such as JCPenney Company Inc. This alleged conspiracy centered on meetings and phone calls between senior Stora Enso and UPM executives prior to a series of price increase announcements. "The record in this case presents strong, if not irrefutable, evidence of a conspiracy in a context where the conspiracy's goals were aligned with the conspirators' economic interests," Circuit Judge Susan Carney wrote for a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit. Carney also said U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill in Bridgeport, Connecticut, correctly dismissed the case against the Stora Enso parent, citing a lack of evidence it was directly involved in price-fixing. The 2nd Circuit returned the case to Underhill's courtroom for further proceedings. David Marx, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery representing Stora Enso, said the Helsinki-based company believes a jury, when presented with the facts, will find that Stora Enso North America and UPM did not conspire to fix paper prices. Daniel Small, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll representing the purchasers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. UPM received immunity from U.S. prosecutors in February 2006 in return for its cooperation in the price-fixing probe. The Stora Enso unit was indicted 10 months later on criminal price-fixing charges. A federal jury in New Haven, Connecticut, acquitted that unit in July 2007, court records show. European Union antitrust regulators closed their own probe into alleged price fixing in the paper industry in 2006. The case is In re: Publication Paper Antitrust Litigation, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 11-101. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions