DOJ Investigating Price Fixing Among Chocolate Makers

Reuters:

The U.S. Justice Department is looking into possible price fixing in the chocolate industry, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday on its Web site.

Last month, Canadian authorities launched a similar probe into price fixing at the Canadian units of major chocolate makers Nestle SA, Cadbury Schweppes Plc, Hershey Co and Mars Inc.

Read the whole story: Reuters

Comments

[TitaniumAvatar]

Hey DOJ,

We realize you have a full plate, so we'd like to suggest you prioritize and start with the important issues first.

Your Boss'

[WilliePilgrim]

This is the consequence of our nation's subsidies to sugar farmers. The fact that it is not mentioned in the article should go some distance to persuade fellow readers that at this rate we're not likely to fix the root of the problem and there is a huge industry making great money argueing the point on your dollar.

[LeRoyHolt]

Could not one Chocolateer from the DOJ attend the Congressional hearing on the Halliburton/Brown & Root rape case?

Oh....... the administration has priorities..

[mamacat]

News flash - Pres. Doofus has just stated that he will double the size of the National Chocolate Reserve, driving chocolate prices sky high, and thus obviating the need for the candy companies to engage in price fixing. As long as they keep funneling money into the GOP through their K Street lobbyists, Bushie Boy will take care of the problem for them. Stay tuned for more news.

[godlessclif]

Bush packed the DOJ with Regent Law School grads and they don't understand anything else. Sort of like if IBM fired all the MIT grads and hired engineers from ITT technical institute.

[getoffmedz]

Since the DOJ is part of the administration, this is a matter of priorities?

Talk about other branches of the government wasting time?

WTF.

[loki]

Please.. Who doesnt price fix these days. Just look at the ads in the Sunday paper. Doesnt matter what you look at, every item is the same price no matter what the store. Or you get places like Best Buy and other electronics stores promising the lowest price on a specific item. And the reason you cant find it at a lower price anywhere is because they have manufactures put a specific model on the items going to best buy. So if you try to compare Widgets dvd player model number 121 at other stores, you cant, because that model number is only at best buy. You can get the same exact machine at Ultimate or Circut City, but Ultimates model is 100 and Circut model is 131.
Same exact thing, just the sticker is different.
This scam and many others are done all the time, and that includes price fixing.

[xcrunner77]

If this is true the chocolate makers owe me a helluva lot of money. :)

[drumz]

Yup, I can see dissertations now; hereshey's uses a higher quality sugar while ghiradhelli uses high paid swiss alpeneer's and then you have See's who only employ rotund over pancake make-up'd most likely medicated grandmother types, whew. Or maybe they employ illegals!

What a glorious front page news story they have - CHOCOLATE, everyone can relate to that! Because things like hmmm, let me think, oh yeah, I remember now, CIA; outing, torture tapes, or maybe gonzo and Attorney-gate, abu garhib, guantonimo the list keeps growing.

[godlessclif]

Shouldn't we deal with price fixing of gasoline first?

[Lemeritus]

I think we're all agreed: this is an issue the DOJ can really sink their teeth into. For the love of Mike!

[UncleJimbo]

I knew my Dark Chocolate fix was costing way too much lately! Those Fuckers!!!

[FeelinGroovy]

Yes, by all means, that is the most important thing for the DOJ to focus on right now.

geez

[drumz]

So the price of chocolate candy is more important than let's say gas, electric, oil and gas utilities, cable, phone (cell and land), phony tech visa needs (damn I'm a techie and don't remember the HR#), insurance rates, man I'm getting tired...
And like edresearcher points out, I guess they're not GOP contributors...

[edresearcher]

Funny how the DOJ is investigating price fixing in the chocolate industry while we're all paying $3.00+ for a gallon of gas. Sounds like the chocolate industry needs to start increasing those campaign contributions.