Maple Leaf Foods defends against claims it used Canada Bread as a shield in price fixing investigation

Maple Leaf Foods says legal claims brought by Canada Bread in relation to an ongoing investigation into allegations of bread price fixing are manufactured and without merit.

“Maple Leaf Foods has done nothing wrong here,” the company said in a Sept. 18 news release ahead of a scheduled Sept. 19 court hearing.

Earlier this month, Canada Bread alleged that Maple Leaf Foods personnel “directed and participated in certain anti-competitive conduct” that was investigated by Canada’s competition bureau and then “used Canada Bread as a shield” after Canada Bread was fined $50 million in 2023. Maple Leaf Foods was then majority owner of Canada Bread, which has been owned by Grupo Bimbo (Bimbo Canada) since 2014.

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In 2023 Ontario’s Superior Court fined Canada Bread after the company pled guilty to four counts of fixing bread prices in 2007 and 2011. The allegations came to light in an industry-wide federal investigation launched in 2017 by the Competition Bureau.

Maple Leaf Foods said Canada Bread must want to embroil it into ongoing class action proceedings and added that the Ontario Superior Court rejected similar claims against Maple Leaf three years ago.

“Canada Bread is using this, and other false claims, in a transparent attempt to set itself up to try to recover damages from Maple Leaf Foods related to Canada Bread’s own decision to seek leniency from the Competition Bureau in 2017 for an alleged conspiracy that Maple Leaf Foods and others say never actually occurred,” the news release said.

“We will continue to vigorously defend ourselves against these (and other) unfounded claims,” it added.

Earlier this summer, grocery giant Loblaw (Loblaw Companies Limited) and parent company George Weston Limited announced that a $500 million settlement had been reached in a class action suit concerning their involvement in the bread price-fixing scandal. The parties named in the class action suite are Loblaw, George Weston, Canada Bread, Sobeys, Metro, Wal-Mart and Giant Tiger, according to class action firm LPC Advocats’ website.