Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch today announced that his office is accepting grant applications from Rhode Island nonprofits that would implement, subsidize or create programs to improve the health and/or nutritional needs of residents of the state. The grants will be funded by Rhode Island’s share of settlement funds, about $103,000, resulting from a multistate class action settlement on behalf of consumers and businesses victimized by an alleged vitamins price-fixing conspiracy.

Lynch said that the $25 million settlement arose from a massive and long-running international conspiracy that, from 1988 to 2000, involved 20 vitamin companies conspiring with the purpose of fixing prices, allocating market share and committing other unlawful practices designed to inflate the prices of vitamins, vitamin premixes and bulk vitamins sold to consumers in Rhode Island and the 22 other states that participated in the multistate investigation. Half of the settlement funds, about $12 million, is being distributed to the settling states. The conspiracy violated federal and state antitrust laws, the states say.

“The conspiracy stretched over so many years and took advantage of so many consumers that it’s impossible to compensate individual victims,” Lynch said. “Given the extraordinary numbers of affected consumers, each attorney general involved in the multistate group is distributing settlement funds to charitable, government or nonprofit organizations.”

Each grant applicant based in Rhode Island must have or create a project with the express purpose of improving the health and/or nutrition of residents of the State of Rhode Island and/or the advancement of nutritional, dietary or agricultural science. The grant application, including a project narrative and budget, may be obtained at the Rhode Island Department of Attorney General, 150 South Main Street, Providence, or by accessing the Attorney General’s website at www.riag.ri.gov (click on “Forms”). The deadline for receiving completed grant applications is 5 PM on Monday, March 1, 2010.

Lynch announced the settlement on Dec. 1 of last year. The companies that sold the vitamins and are subject to the $25.03 million settlement are: Akzo Nobel Inc., Bioproducts Inc., Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and Mitsui & Co. (USA) Inc., Chinook Global Limited and Chinook Group Inc., Evonik Degussa GmbH (successor to Degussa AG and Evonik Degussa Corp.), Lonza AG, Merck KGaA, E. Merck and EM Industries Inc., Nepera Inc., Sumitomo Chemical America Inc. and Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd., Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp. and Tanabe USA Inc., UCB Pharma Inc., and Vertellus Specialties Inc. and Vertellus Chemicals SA.

Arizona, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin participated in the multistate investigation resulting in the settlement.

For more information about the grant application, call Special Assistant Attorney General Edmund Murray at 1-401-274-4400, X 2401. # # #

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