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Sahir Gill ready to produce for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins

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Happy birthday to Cameron Ryan Pajalich!

<p>PITTSTON TWP. &#8212; A class-action lawsuit leveled against Benco Dental accuses the Pittston Township-based dental supplies distributor of conspiring to impede its lesser competitors in an illegal effort to boost the price of its own sales.</p><p>Filed Feb. 10 in federal court, the lawsuit accuses Benco of conspiring with Patterson Companies Inc., of Minnesota, and Henry Schein Inc., of New York, in a scheme to inflate prices of dental supplies above competitive levels by pressuring dental associations not to deal with newer, cheaper distributors.</p><p>The three distributors, whose combined sales make up 80 percent of the market, threatened or employed group boycotts of other dental supplies manufacturers that endorsed or partnered with its competitors in violation of federal antitrust laws, the lawsuit says.</p><p>&#8220;Defendants abused their dominant collective market power by privately communicating and reaching an agreement to engage in an anticompetitive scheme to foreclose and impair competition, maintain and enhance market power, and artificially inflate prices of dental supplies above competitive levels,&#8221; wrote Philadelphia-based attorney Robert S. Kitchenoff.</p><p>A Benco spokesperson on Wednesday denied the accusations.</p><p>&#8220;There is no truth to the allegations, and we&#8217;re confident that we will prevail in court,&#8221; the spokesperson said in a statement.</p><p>Benco has ballooned from a single-room office in downtown Wilkes-Barre that opened in 1930 to a prominent supplies distributor with customers in 39 states. It employs about 1,200 nationwide at four distribution centers and 50 showrooms and has been repeatedly recognized in the Pennsylvania &#8220;Best Places to Work&#8221; awards program.</p><p>A $30 million, 280,000-square-foot headquarters was opened in 2010 in the CenterPoint Commerce &amp; Trade Park.</p><p>Since manufacturers rely on distributors like Benco to purchase their products and resell them on the market, Benco wields a significant amount of power because the manufacturers would suffer if Benco limited or stopped the sale of their products, the lawsuit says.</p><p>Plaintiff Dr. Sander I. White, a dentist practicing in Delaware County, seeks damages tripled against Benco and its co-defendants from a period of anticompetitive actions beginning in at least February 2012, the lawsuit says.</p><p>A class-action status means any dentist who purchased from Benco or its partners during that time period could be eligible for a piece of the settlement. The lawsuit claims those affected by paying inflated costs are innumerable.</p><p>The recent legal action against Benco is only the latest legal hurdle they&#8217;ve encountered.</p><p>Benco consented to a $300,000 judgment in an April 2015 petition filed on similar charges in Texas state court. Then, Benco and its partners were accused of conspiring to boycott the 2014 annual meeting of the Texas Dental Association (TDA) to stifle a newly formed distributor who partnered with the TDA in an attempt to sell many of the same products at a lower price, according to the suit.</p><p>Benco and its partners agreed to pressure other distributors and manufacturers to halt partnerships that supplied the TDA, causing them to lose access to potential sales. The lawsuit says Benco agreed to the settlement on the same day the petition was filed.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Benco Dental headquarters, located in Pittston Township. The nationwide dental supplies distributor is the subject of a class-action lawsuit filed last week in federal court. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_TTL021816Benco1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Benco Dental headquarters, located in Pittston Township. The nationwide dental supplies distributor is the subject of a class-action lawsuit filed last week in federal court. </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger |Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Joe Dolinsky</p><p>jdolinsky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Joe Dolinsky at 570-991-6110 or on Twitter @JoeDolinskyTL</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Class-action lawsuit accuses Benco Dental of flexing market muscle to stifle competition