Sweda Farms Ltd., owned by Svante Lind of Blackstock, has changed its legal firm again to pursue its lawsuit against L.H. Gray and Son Ltd. and the Egg Farmers of Ontario marketing board.
The new one is Wagner Sidlofsky. The previous one was Blaney McMurtry and before that Donald Good.
The original lawsuit, which included Burnbrae Farms Ltd., was filed in 2008.
In a nutshell, Lind believes that the two dominant egg-grading companies, which account for about 90 per cent of Ontario’s eggs, conspired with the egg board to drive his egg-grading station out of business.
The egg board claimed Lind’s egg-grading business was cheating it out of levies which apply only to Grade A eggs by culling out a larger percentage of eggs than the provincial average.
Lind countered that the two were including cracked eggs in their Grade As, an allegation that Ontario Farmer confirmed by obtaining the results of random sample testing by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Lind also claimed that e-mails between Gray and Burnbrae indicated they colluded over market shares and pricing.
All three defendants have denied any wrongdoing and Burnbrae has been dismissed from the lawsuit after Good failed to demand Burnbrae furnish documents to match e-mails to and from Gray.
The judge ruled that meant there was insufficient evidence against Burnbrae.
