Efforts to add Maple Leaf Foods to bread price-fixing class action denied

An Ontario Superior Court judge has dismissed an attempt to add Maple Leaf Foods to a class-action lawsuit related to the bread-price fixing scandal.

When the class-action lawsuit was originally certified in an Ontario court in 2021 against several grocery retailers and other food companies, Maple Leaf was not included.

Plantiffs, supported by Canada Bread Co., argued last month that Maple Leaf should be added as a defendant in the lawsuit because of its past ownership of the company.

READ: Canada Bread says Maple Leaf used it as a 'shield' in bread price-fixing case

Canada Bread was fined by the bureau in 2023 after admitting to four counts of price-fixing, but has argued as part of the class-action lawsuit that Maple Leaf, which was its majority owner at the time, should shoulder the blame instead.

Maple Leaf sold Canada Bread to Mexico's Grupo Bimbo for $1.8-billion in February.

The class-action lawsuit is one of two launched in the wake of an ongoing Competition Bureau investigation into an alleged industry-wide conspiracy to fix the price of bread.