Updated: 2005-06-07
China's vitamin C manufacturers are preparing to contest an anti-trust lawsuit filed by two rivals in the United States. "The vitamin company has hired lawyers to deal with this case," said Wellcome Pharmaceutical Co on its website. The company received a summons from a US court last Wednesday.

Other enterprises involved were previously also busy preparing for the case although they had not been officially informed.

"Group leaders have negotiated how to deal with it as soon as they got the information," said an anonymous official at Shijiazhuang Pharmaceutical Group in North China's Hebei Province. The group, its Hong Kong-listed company and a subsidiary were all sued.

Two US pharmaceutical companies filed petitions at the Supreme Court of California in late February against six Chinese vitamin C producers for violating the Anti-trust Law.

They claimed that the purchasers of vitamin C in the US paid more for vitamin C than they would have paid in the absence of the alleged conspiracy and suffered losses.

Chinese manufacturers argued that their average export price of vitamin C to the United States was US$4.57 per kilogram while the global average was US$4.63 per kilogramme.

Their prices were still lower than those of other major manufacturers, despite their increases last year, passing on a rise in costs.