Alleged Price Fixing Could Affect Buyers of Jeld Wen Interior Doors

Concerns over alleged price fixing by the makers of Jeld Wen Interior Doors could affect numerous consumers. Plaintiff Grubb Lumber Company has initiated an antitrust lawsuit accusing some of the largest door manufacturers of conspiring to control prices.

The allegations of price fixing involve two different manufacturers of interior molded doors–Jeld Wen and Masonite. The companies are two of the leading sellers of these kinds of doors across the country. Together, they control 85 percent of the North American market for molded interior doors. They are the only manufacturers of doorskins in the North American continent.

The lawsuit accuses the companies of working together to keep prices artificially high, allegedly in violation of the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act. The plaintiff alleges the higher prices got passed on to consumers who paid more for their doors than they should have had to.

Indirect and direct purchasers could have been negatively affected by this alleged price fixing scheme. Indirect purchasers include those people who purchased the Jeld Wen Interior Doors at retail, and direct purchasers include those companies that purchased from the manufacturer directly to sell at retail.

Interior molded doors are a type of door that is made by using a hollow or solid core between two door skins that is sandwiched between a wood frame. They have become extremely popular with consumers because they simulate the aesthetics of the solid wood door but are sold at lower prices. In fact, the Jeld Wen Interior Doors lawsuit argues that the interior molded door is the most popular type of interior door across North America.

According to the plaintiff, Jeld Wen eliminated a check on market competition when it acquired CMI, also known as Craft Master Inc. Similar allegations are raised against Masonite, who in conjunction with Jeld Wen allegedly eliminated competition by acquiring smaller interior door manufacturers.

The Jeld Wen Interior Doors lawsuit says that the defendants sought to work together to eliminate competition by discontinuing a long-standing practice of supplying their own door skins to smaller interior door manufacturing companies.

In 2014, for example, Masonite announced that they would no longer sell any door skins which are crucial to the development of these molded interior doors to other door manufacturers, ceding that part of the market to Jeld Wen.

“This unprecedented shift in business practice was plainly against Masonite’s own economic interests, as it handed over that entire market to Jeld-Wen,” the complaint reads.

The alleged conspiracy has been going on since October 2012, according to the plaintiff. The Jeld Wen Interior Doors lawsuit says that at approximately the same time, Jeld Wen began taking negative actions against third party door manufacturers, such as raising prices and notifying a third-party manufacturer that the supply agreement would be terminated prematurely.

The Jeld Wen Interior Doors Lawsuit is case 3:18-cv-00718 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division.

Join a Free Interior Molded Doors Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you own or work for a company that sold Jeld-Wen and/or Masonite interior molded doors from October 2012 to the present or if you purchased the doors from a retailer, you may have been the victim of an antitrust price-fixing conspiracy. Legal help is available.

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