The wheels that were set in motion last year, as both the EU cartel authorities and the FBI raided the offices of several polyurethane manufacturers – see Plasteurope.com of 11.08.2010 – are still spinning. Several international media report that a new group of indirect buyers – consumers who bought the end product, not the foam for converting purposes – has sued a group of flexible polyurethane foam producers at the US District Court of Kentucky.

The producers affected by the legal action are said to include Carpenter (Richmond, Virginia / USA; www.carpenter.com), Flexible Foam Products (Spencerville, Ohio / USA; http://flexiblefoam.com), FXI-Foamex Innovations (Media, Pennsylvania / USA; www.fxi.com), Future Foam (Council Bluffs, Iowa / USA; www.futurefoam.com), Hickory Springs Manufacturing (Hickory, North Carolina / USA; www.hickorysprings.com), Inoac (Troy, Michigan / USA; www.inoac.co.jp), Leggett & Platt (Carthage, Missouri / USA; www.leggett.com), Mohawk Industries (Calhoun, Georgia / USA; http://mohawkind.com), Otto Bock (Minneapolis, Minnesota / USA; www.ottobockus.com), Plastomer Corporation (Livonia, Michigan / USA; www.plastomer.com), Scottdel (Swanton, Ohio / USA; www.scottdel.com), Valle Foam (Brampton, Ontario / Canada), Vitafoam (High Point, North Carolina / USA; www.vitausa.com) and the Woodbridge Foam Corporation (Mississauga, Ontario / Canada). They have been accused of price fixing and market allocation, with reports that the damages could exceed EUR 3.5m.