The $152.2 Million Tuna Settlement Started Paying on September 8 — Twenty Months After Claims Closed — and Some Checks Can't Be Cashed Because of a Bank Processing Problem. Replacement Checks Come With an Extra $20.

The End Payer Plaintiffs alleged that from June 2011 to July 2015 the three big packaged-tuna companies “participated in an unlawful conspiracy to raise, fix, maintain, or stabilize the price of Packaged Tuna products at an artificially high level in violation of antitrust and unfair competition laws.” The class of consumers was certified in July 2019, the Ninth Circuit affirmed on April 8, 2022, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the companies' appeal on November 14, 2022. Chicken of the Sea — Tri-Union Seafoods and its Thai parent, called “COSI” in the papers — had already settled for $16.2 million in benefits, approved in July 2022. StarKist and its parent Dongwon agreed to pay $130 million over eighteen months, and the Lion Companies, Bumble Bee's parent companies (Bumble Bee itself went bankrupt and was dismissed from the case), $6 million. Judge Sabraw gave both final approval on November 22, 2024; the claims deadline was December 31, 2024.

Then nothing happened for a year and a half, on purpose. Judge Sabraw's July 27 order explains: “Due to the costs of claim administration, payments to the settlement class were not immediately distributed but held until all settlement amounts have been paid by the Settling Defendants as required by the Settlement Agreements.” StarKist's last installment arrived in December 2025, COSI's in March 2026. Class counsel's declaration puts it plainly: “It was not efficient to make multiple distributions, with the costs of claims administration. Instead, it was more efficient to delay distribution until all settlement funds are received.” A side appeal over the administrator's deficiency letters was dismissed by the Ninth Circuit on May 1, 2026, clearing the last obstacle. Counsel moved for final disbursement on June 18, the court signed the order on July 27, and the schedule called for the funds to move to JND within ten days and payments to start within thirty days after that. The settlement site's FAQ now states: “Payments for approved claims were issued on September 8, 2026.”

The home page of the settlement site now opens with a boxed notice we have not seen reported elsewhere. In full: “The Bank handling distribution has told us some class members are unable to cash their checks due to a bank processing issue. There are sufficient funds available to cover all payments. To resolve the issue, replacement checks will be issued as quickly as possible and will include an additional $20 to help cover any bank fees you may have incurred. If your bank charged you more than $20, please email info@TunaEndPurchaserSettlement.com. Please do not attempt to re-deposit the original check to avoid incurring additional fees.”

Three things follow from that. The problem is on the paying bank's side, not a shortage of money — the administrator says so explicitly. A returned or refused check is not a rejected claim; the update says replacements “will be issued” and does not ask class members to request them. And the $20 is a flat allowance: a returned-item fee above that has to be claimed by email. The notice is undated, and the site does not say how many checks are affected or when the replacements go out beyond “as quickly as possible.” The court's schedule gives one useful clock: checks are void 60 days after issuance “or re-issuance” — the court's order says a claimant who does not cash within that window “will lapse and any entitlement to recovery will be forfeited” — so a replacement check starts its own 60 days. For the September 8 batch the original window runs to about November 7, 2026.

Payment came the way you chose on the claim form: a mailed check, or PayPal to the email address you gave. The FAQ notes that you “are unable to change your payment method from Mailed Check to PayPal,” though a failed PayPal payment is reissued as a check, and if your PayPal email has changed you can ask for a check. Address changes go to JND with your full name, claim number and old and new addresses; JND ran every address through the Postal Service's change-of-address database before mailing and skip-traces returned envelopes. The contact points are 1-866-615-0977, info@TunaEndPurchaserSettlement.com, and Tuna End Purchaser Settlement, c/o JND Legal Administration, P.O. Box 91442, Seattle, WA 98111.

Payments are pro rata by the number of cans or pouches you claimed. The long-form notice for the StarKist and Lion settlements gave the only official estimate: “it is estimated that Settlement Class Members will receive approximately $24.50 for every 200 cans purchased (approximate number of cans if you purchased packaged tuna weekly during the Settlement Class Period) or approximately $0.12 per can,” with the usual caveat that the real figure depends on fees, costs and “the number of valid claims received, and the volume of cans/pouches represented in those claims.” The floor is fixed: “If the total payment for any Settlement Class Member was less than $5.00, no payment was made to the Settlement Class Member.” At twelve cents a can, that is our arithmetic, a claim of fewer than about 42 cans — less than one can a month over the four-year class period — produced nothing.

The other end is capped by a “Threshold.” JND's declaration describes it as “the maximum quantity purchased during the Class Period that, in consultation with Class Counsel, was determined to be reasonable for typical household consumption.” Claims above it drew a deficiency notice; a claimant who answered by mail with a copy of a government ID and a revised quantity was approved, one who did not was capped or denied. Eleven entities that documented donating tuna above the threshold — verified against tax records and the direct-purchaser case — were paid in full. That structure is why the reported amounts vary so much. Newsweek, on September 9, relayed social-media reports of “roughly $150” for some and “more than $2,000” for others; at the estimated rate, $2,000 corresponds to roughly 16,700 cans and would only fit a verified bulk or institutional claim. We have not seen the actual per-can rate and cannot confirm any individual figure. The numbers that are on the record: 980,568 claims filed across all three settlements, 443,892 of them in the StarKist/Lion round (437,522 online, 6,370 on paper), 207,825 deficiency notices sent, and 310 late claims — filed inside a 120-day grace period that ended April 30, 2025 — accepted by the court as “not even one hundredth of a percent of the total claims filed” (three hundredths, by our arithmetic). The number of approved claimants is not in the public filings.

Class counsel's declaration of June 18, 2026 gives the ledger. Funding received: $152,836,450.89 — Tri-Union $16,836,450.89, Lion $6,000,000, StarKist $130,000,000; the declaration does not explain why Tri-Union's figure exceeds the $16.2 million settlement. Interest earned is listed separately: $3,119,974.67. Attorneys' fees approved by the court: $48,320,739.40, of which $41.7 million had been paid and $6.6 million was still to be paid alongside the class distribution; by our arithmetic that is 33 percent of the fund after expense reimbursements, the percentage the notice said counsel would request. Expense reimbursements: $4,155,027.67 for costs through May 2021 plus $1,618,489.24 since. Service awards: $294,000 to “the sixty-nine individual EPPs representing 31 different states.” Notice and administration invoiced by JND: $4,625,150.11, of which $628,209.58 was still owed when the order issued and was approved with it.

What remained for class members: “As of June 1, 2026, the net settlement fund is $97,539,130.47.” That figure is already net of JND's outstanding $628,209.58 and of the last slice of attorneys' fees. The court then authorized a $925,000 reserve for the distribution itself — $335,000 of it postage, $230,000 check printing and PayPal issuance, $310,000 call-center and reissue work, $50,000 for chasing undeliverable checks from claims that date back to 2022. That leaves about $96.6 million to be paid to claimants, by our count, before any interest after June 1 and taxes. Uncashed money does not go back to the companies: once checks lapse, counsel reports to the court at 120 days after distribution (about January 6, 2027) and files a final accounting at 180 days (about March 7, 2027); if a second round is not worthwhile, the remainder goes to the Consumer Protection Policy Center at the University of San Diego, approved as the cy pres recipient without objection.

Two things this settlement is not. It is closed to new claims: the site says anyone who did not file by December 31, 2024 “will not receive a payment, but you will be bound by the Court's judgment in this case.” And it is not the direct-purchaser case — retailers and distributors who bought straight from the canners have their own settlements at TunaDirectPurchaserCase.com. If you filed in the 2022 Chicken of the Sea round you did not need to file again; those claims are paid from the same pool. The class counsel of record is Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP in San Diego.