ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Coupons worth $2 in free groceries will be distributed in 25 newspapers in western New York state next Sunday as the second round of a settlement between the state attorney general, Wegmans Food Markets here and 10 manufacturers. The state had sued Wegmans and the manufacturers for conspiring to remove cents-off coupons from a 16-county area of Upstate New York that encompassed Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester. Under a settlement agreement last fall, the parties agreed, without admitting wrongdoing, to return $4.2 million in damages to consumers in the form of grocery coupons.
r value to consumers.
Other manufacturers had already dropped coupons in western New York but the practice got wider publicity when P&G did it, observers said. Wegmans was involved, the lawsuit said, because it had approached the manufacturers to limit couponing.
Besides P&G, the other manufacturers are Clorox Co., Colgate-Palmolive Co., Conopco Inc. (Lever Bros. Co.), Dial Corp., DowBrands, L.P., James River Paper Co., S.C. Johnson & Son, Pillsbury Co. and Recklitt and Colman.
