Procter & Gamble Co. and 10 other consumer-products companies agreed Wednesday to pay $4.2 million to settle New York state’s charges that they conspired to deprive consumers of discount coupons in western New York last year.
The settlement will be shared with consumers through coupons to be printed Sunday in newspapers covering 16 counties in the Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo areas. The companies didn’t admit any wrongdoing in the settlement, they said.
Unlike companies such as Clorox Co., Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Dow Chemical Co., which resumed offering coupons in western New York last year under pressure from the state, P&G only started offering coupons after it was hit with a cease-and-desist order.
Before that, the Cincinnati-based consumer-products firm ignored a campaign by shoppers and politicians urging it to resume its coupon program.
“P&G resisted the longest,” said Mike Zabel, a spokesman for New York Atty. Gen. Dennis Vacco, who investigated P&G’s experiment to cut coupons and use the savings on promotions it said would benefit all consumers. P&G has said only 2 percent of the coupons it distributes are redeemed.
The company may have misjudged public sentiment for coupons. Shortly after P&G stopped offering coupons in January 1996, residents in the Buffalo area protested. The Erie County, N.Y., lawmakers then passed a resolution asking P&G to end the experiment. Senior citizens and homeowner groups collected 23,000 signatures on a petition, which was later sent to the company.
P&G resumed coupons when Vacco imposed his cease-and-desist order in April.
