March 18, 2026
Summary by Bloomberg AI
- Abbott Laboratories will invest $40 million over five years into its Michigan plant to resolve stockholder allegations against executives and board members over its infant formula safety.
- The derivative settlement seeks to ensure Abbott maintains sanitation and environmental monitoring programs in line with the health-care company’s food safety principles across all of its US powdered infant formula facilities.
- The deal proposed by shareholders would require Abbott to extend a consent decree’s monitoring plans and have a third party review any enhancements to those, among other oversight measures.
Abbott Laboratories will invest $40 million over five years into its highly-scrutinized Michigan plant to resolve stockholder allegations against executives and board members over its infant formula safety.
The derivative settlement seeks to ensure Abbott maintains sanitation and environmental monitoring programs in line with the health-care company’s food safety principles across all of its US powdered infant formula facilities, shareholders said in a proposed brief to the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. All $40 million at the Sturgis, Mich., plant will be spent on “core operations, food safety, or quality assurance.”
The investors Tuesday sought preliminary approval of the deal, inching Abbott’s current and former officers and directors toward the end of more than three years of litigation tied to the Sturgis plant, which was temporarily shut down in 2022 amid bacterial contamination concerns.
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Scott & Scott Attorneys at Law LLP and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC are lead counsel for the shareholders leading the settlement, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local No. 710 Pension Fund and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. Scott & Scott Attorneys at Law LLP didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Cohen Milstein declined to comment.
Read Abbott Labs Leaders, Shareholders Settle Infant Formula Suit.