Sandler Helps Secure $72 Million Settlement in Antitrust Case

As liaison counsel and designated lead trial counsel to plaintiffs in a multi-million dollar class-action price-fixing lawsuit, Shapiro Sher partner Paul Mark Sandler has helped negotiate a $72 million settlement with chemical giant E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. Details of the settlement have been reported in Law360, The Maryland Daily Record and other media outlets.

In the case, Haley Paint Co. et al. v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. et al., a trio of paint companies filed suit against DuPont and three other chemical companies, accusing them of conspiring to fix prices on titanium dioxide, an ingredient used in paint. The suit, filed in 2010 in Maryland federal court, alleges that the four chemical companies -- which together make up approximately 70% of the titanium dioxide market -- have been secretly guiding ditanium-dioxide pricing since 2002 but that the scheme was not uncovered until an investigation in 2008. Of the four defendants, two have reached settlements with the plaintiffs: DuPont and Utah-based Huntsman Company. The case will proceed against the two remaining defendants: Kronos Worldwide Inc. and Millennium Inorganic Chemicals Inc.