TreeHouse Sues Green Mountain Over Anticompetitive Acts Over Cups

(RTTNews) - TreeHouse Foods, Inc., (THS) and two wholly-owned subsidiaries, Bay Valley Foods, LLC and Sturm Foods, Inc., Tuesday filed suit against Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (GMCR) and Keurig, Inc., accusing them of anticompetitive acts to unlawfully maintain a monopoly over the cups used in single-serve brewers.

In the complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, TreeHouse accuses Green Mountain of violation of federal antitrust laws, and state antitrust and unfair competition statutes and common law of the states of New York, Wisconsin and Illinois.

The plaintiffs assert that several exclusionary agreements between Green Mountain and various suppliers and distributors are designed to maintain Green Mountain's monopoly power in the cup market after the expiration of Green Mountain's cup patents.

Further, Green Mountain has announced that its Keurig 2.0 brewer that will be launched later this year will contain an anticompetitive lock-out technology. This will prevent the Keurig 2.0 brewers from functioning with cups supplied by unlicensed competitors.

According to TreeHouse, these actions are an attempt to eliminate consumer choice and to coerce Keurig 2.0 brewer owners into purchasing only Green Mountain owned or licensed K-cups.

Additionally, Green Mountain has announced plans to eliminate the current lineup of K-cup brewers, which function with competitive cups, to exclude competition and force consumers to purchase higher-priced Green Mountain cups, it added.

TreeHouse's lawsuit maintains that any supposed consumer benefits from the new technology are more than outweighed by the harm to competition and consumers by eliminating their choice and forcing them to pay higher prices for Green Mountain cups.

THS closed up 0.2 percent on Tuesday at $64.09. GMCR added 7.6 percent to $119.40.