A couple of weeks ago, our local newspaper ran a rather indignant editorial on the subject of gasoline price fixing, with the unambiguous title “Price fixing is bad no matter who does it”, a sentiment I happen to whole-heartedly endorse. It did however remind me of a related story that may be even closer to home for members of this list, since it touches on important public health issues and how theyʼre dealt with in the popular press. It also highlighted --- to my non-journalist eyes at least --- a rather disturbing lack of editorial consistency. Since the related story is currently makings its tangled way through the courts in several countries with members on this list, I was curious as to how well the media were covering it in other jurisdications. In fact, I was hoping that list members might be able to help me out in this regard, perhaps by finding time to reply with a line or two regarding their local experience.

As it turns out, our city (Montreal) recently figured prominently in the successful prosecution of the largest price-fixing scandal in history, one which saw the Competition Bureau of Canada levy fines of over $90 million – the largest criminal fines in Canada, ever – against pharmaceutical companies charged with fixing the prices of vitamin supplements used as food additives, in what the our national broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, described as “the largest price fixing scam in the world”, a cartel whose predatory scheme “went on for more than 10 years” and totaled more than $100 million in illegal profits on sales of over $700 million in Canada alone. The compelling spy-thriller plot even included lamp-shade camera evidence recorded by the FBI,whose video tapes show corporate executives meeting in hotel rooms around the world, secretly dividing up the global market for vitamin supplements, fixing prices, and punctuating their group hugs with some rather sinister comments (at one point, the FBI transcripts include this pithy dialog right out of the Sopranos – missing only Tonyʼs trademark “Fahgeddaboutit” - with normally tight-buttoned executives remonstrating against their consumer “enemy”: “Thank God , we gotta have 'em, but they are not my friends. You're my friend. … 'Cause you can help me make money”). In the end, industry stalwarts including Hoffman LaRoche, Rhone Poulenc, Bayer, Eisai Chemical, and Dalchai Pharmaceuticals had little choice but to plead guilty. A number of smaller industry players have also been charged and fined, with the Competition Bureau web site listing penalties ranging from $1 million (Merck) to $48 million (Hoffman LaRoche) for what Bureau prosecutors described as “ the most egregious offence there is under the Competition Act".

In addition to a compelling plot, this storyʼs local angle saw a Montreal consumer protection group (Options Consammateur) and class-action lawyer Eric David lead the charge in seeking compensation on behalf of all Canadians who were unknowingly exploited through the prices charged for vitamin-enriched food staples. Moreover, in handing down their record-breaking $132 million judgment in 2005, superior courts in Quebec, Ontario and BC showed great collective wisdom in my mind, concluding that while every Canadian man, woman and child was owed $5 by way of compensation,justice would not be well served by sending us all a cheque. Instead, they ear-marked $22 million of the settlement to be divided among Canadian universities with doctoral programs in nutrition and veternary medicine, the latter to compensate farmers gouged on the price of lifestock feed. Additional funds were disbursed to support nutritional education and community groups promoting nutritional awareness. As I understand it, their intention was to use the settlement to directly support nutritional research and progress in the use of the very vitamin supplements at the heart of the scandal. Personally, I think cudos are due our magistrates, who exercised precisely the judgement and discretion one would hope for from the bench. Although the settlement dates to 2005, the disbursal of of funds from the class-action settlement was realised just last month and had yet another local dimension, in that the McGill School of Human Nutrition was among its beneficiaries.

For many reasons, this is an important story. The pharmaceutical industry is wealthy and politically powerful, particularly in Quebec. The products involved are ubiquitous and touch our lives intimately. The local dimension reminds us that national and global issues can sometimes touch very close to home, and the Solomonic wisdom of our courts recalls the very best of what they bring to such thorny questions. All said, the thing that troubles me most is why a search of local newspaper archives reveals so few column inches devoted to this story. In light of their editorial glee, one has to wonder just why this should be so. Is it perhaps that some price fixing is ʻmore badʼ than others? Or is it just that the petroleum industry makes an easier, more popular target for editorializing? Given the millions at stake, not to mention the principles involved, I was curious whether the story was commanding front page attention elsewhere.

Atul Sharma MD, FRCP(C)
Pediatric Nephrologist,
Montreal, QC