Graphic Packaging International dismissed from containerboard price-fixing lawsuit

Packaging Dive reported the development on 2025-09-26. The class-action lawsuit will continue against the other seven defendants who were accused of colluding.

The report places the news in a wider commercial context. Graphic Packaging International has been dismissed from the containerboard price-fixing lawsuit that New York-based Artuso Pastry Foods Corp. filed against eight of the largest fiber product producers in North America, according to court documents. Judge Mary M. Rowland of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Sept.

For the food sector, the practical implications extend beyond the immediate announcement. The documents note the case will continue against the other defendants, which include Cascades, Georgia-Pacific, Greif, International Paper, Packaging Corporation of America, Pratt Industries and Smurfit Westrock.

Attention now turns to how companies, customers and regulators respond. An attorney with antitrust defense expertise who reviewed the complaint, but is not involved in the case, explained that these dismissals sometimes occur in collusion cases if a specific defendant is deemed to be different enough from the other defendants. All parties named in the complaint would need to be direct competitors with the same level of potential involvement in the alleged.