Last week, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, 42 other state attorneys general, and Puerto Rico filed a lawsuit in federal court in Connecticut against 20 manufacturers of generic drugs. The lawsuit alleges that the manufacturers are engaged in an illegal price-fixing scheme, driving up the costs of generic drugs for consumers, sometimes by several thousand percent. Over 500 pages, the complaint describes in detail the historical behavior of the companies that allegedly amounts to 33 counts of anti-competitive behavior in violation of federal antitrust law.
This is not the first time that pharmaceutical companies have been sued under similar allegations, but according to NPR, this is the first one in which so many states are involved as parties. On CBS This Morning, Attorney General Tong said, “It’s what we believe to be the biggest corporate cartel in history and probably the biggest antitrust price-fixing case in this country, certainly right now and maybe in our nation’s history.”
Additional Reading
States Sue Drugmakers Over Alleged Generic-Price-Fixing Scheme, NPR, May 13, 2019
Complaint in Connecticut et al v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. via Justia Dockets