6 Vitamin Makers to Pay $19.6 Million

Roche’s U.S. unit and five other vitamin makers will pay $19.6 million to settle Massachusetts consumers’ lawsuits that claim the companies conspired to fix vitamin prices for a decade.

Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., BASF Corp., Aventis Animal Nutrition, and Japan’s Eisai Co., Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co., and Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. agreed to settle the claims after Massachusetts’ highest court ruled state consumer-protection laws could be used to press what amounts to price-fixing claims.

The settlement is a spinoff of a larger investigation into price fixing by major vitamin producers. Since 1999, the companies have agreed to pay a total of $497 million to settle similar claims brought by state attorneys general and plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits filed in federal court.

In November 2001, European Union officials fined Roche, BASF and six other companies $752 million for fixing vitamin prices.

Company officials were not immediately available to comment.