Glanbia facing US class action suit over bodybuilding product

Glanbia, which will announce its interim results this Wednesday, is being targeted in the US by lawyers who are aggressively trying to assemble a huge class action against it in relation to one of its top bodybuilding brands.

Bio-Engineered Supplements (BNS), which Glanbia bought for €108 million in 2011 as part of a US-focused expansion of its sports and nutritionals division, and its Irish parent are being sued in California for allegedly mis-stating the potential benefits of Nitrix, a highly popular supplement for bodybuilders.

A law firm called Newport Trial Group, which specialises in assembling consumer-focused class actions and is also behind three other cases outstanding against Glanbia, arranged for Nitrix to be tested.

Ingredient ‘not detectable’

According to court documents, the tests allegedly show that one of the key active ingredients

Nitrix claims to contain was “not detectable”.

The company is now being accused of mis-stating the benefits of the product, which promises to build “muscle fullness, strength, power endurance, and work capacity”.

Newport Trial Group has filed a case against BNS and Glanbia in the name of a single Californian resident, and is seeking to join as plaintiffs in the case anybody who has bought Nitrix in the US in the last four years.

The lawyers say Glanbia “has wrongfully taken millions of dollars” from consumers through sales of Nitrix, which costs about $60 for a month’s supply.

In its original legal complaint, filed in Orange County in April but recently moved to a higher court, it said the number of possible litigants against Glanbia is “in the tens of thousands”.

The case against Glanbia, which denies any wrongdoing and is objecting to attempts to turn the case into a class action, was filed in the name of Martin Conde. He has previously filed class action lawsuits in other cases instigated by Newport Trial Group. In 2012, for example, Mr Conde and Newport attempted to sue Obesity research Labs over the performance of Lipozene, a weight loss product. That case was later withdrawn.

Soft targets

Newport claims on its website to have acted in “more than 100” class actions. Such suits are not technically possible in Ireland, but are commonly taken against consumer healthcare firms in the US, which are often seen as soft targets.

The law firm has had previous successes in bringing class actions against US companies. For example, last year it settled an action it brought against Boiron over its Cold Calm children's product, a homeopathic remedy for colds and flu.

Adopting a similar strategy as per the case currently outstanding against Glanbia, Newport claimed Cold Calm did not work as claimed by the makers. It negotiated payouts for thousands of buyers of Cold Calm, after placing advertisements asking for customers to join the case.