Collusion Among Funeral Service Providers

After a decade long investigation of funeral practices in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) enacted the Funeral Rule (Funeral Industry Practices Trade Regulation Rule, 16 C.F.R. Part 453 (1982)), in an attempt to curb anticompetitive practices by funeral providers.  Despite the FTC’s promulgation of the Funeral Rule, which was designed in part to remedy the industry practice of tying the purchase of funeral services with the purchase of caskets, it appears that the nation’s largest funeral home owners and operators, including Service Corporation International (“SCI”), Alderwoods Group, Inc. (“Alderwoods”), and Stewart Enterprises (“Stewart”), and their alleged co-conspirators, including Hillebrand Industries, Inc. (“Hillebrand”) and Batesville Casket Co. (“Batesville”), may have engaged in a conspiracy to suppress competition in the sale of caskets to consumers in order to fix and maintain their casket pricing above competitive levels.  Specifically, these entities allegedly engaged in the following anticompetitive conduct in violation of the antitrust laws:

• Conspiring to engage in a group boycott to prevent ICDs from both purchasing and selling Batesville, Aurora, and/or York brands of caskets at discounted rates;
• Participating in a campaign of disparagement against ICDs, designed to create the widespread perception among consumers that ICDs are disreputable and their caskets inferior, in order to steer consumers away from ICDs and their products;
• Conspiring to restrict casket price competition and to coordinate casket pricing by restricting or preventing price advertising, sharing price information among themselves, and promoting sham discounting of funeral package purchases by requiring the purchase of a funeral home casket. 

As a result of this alleged anticompetitive conduct, ICDs may have lost a significant percentage of sales to funeral homes and, in some instances, may have gone out of business altogether.  If you are an Independent Casket Dealer and were prevented from directly purchasing the Batesville, Aurora or York brands of caskets, or were in any other way prevented from selling those caskets, you may have been the victim of anticompetitive conduct in violation of the antitrust laws.  If you are a consumer who purchased a casket from any of the three largest funeral home owners, you may have paid too much.  If you are interested in learning more about your or your company’s rights, please contact us at (415) 477-6700 or by clicking here.