Directors of Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. were sued by a stockholder who says they’re trying to force members out of the closely held cooperative.
Lakeville, Massachusetts-based Ocean Spray, with over $1 billion in annual sales, has faced a withering glut of cranberries, and some members want to sell the company.
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In a suit made public today in Delaware Chancery Court, A.R. DeMarco Enterprises, a Hammonton, New Jersey, cranberry grower, contends Ocean Spray’s eleven directors have lobbied the U.S. Department of Agriculture to restrict production in order to force some financially strapped members to sell back their stock.
Directors have implemented a “consipracy and scheme designed to drive minority shareholders out of the business” so they can capture share of the proceeds from an “inevitable sale of the company,” the suit says.
Chris Phillips, an Ocean Spray spokesman, said: “The claims have no basis in fact or law, and we’re prepared to demonstrate that.”
“We don’t want to sell the company, we’re in the midst of a turnaround,” he said.
(Bloomberg)
