The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that Metro has accused Loblaw and its parent company, George Weston, of misleading law enforcement and the Canadian public, by claiming an "industry-wide" scheme existed to fix bread prices for more than a decade. The Globe's Susan Krashinsky Robertson writes that while Metro has previously denied any knowledge of or involvement in such a scheme, this is the first time it has so explicitly accused Loblaw and Weston of conspiring to falsely implicate other companies in price-fixing arrangements. Loblaw has denied the accusation. On Tuesday, Metro filed a statement of defence and cross claim with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, as part of a class-action lawsuit against Loblaw and Weston. The lawsuit stems from Loblaw and its parent company's admission that the companies were part of a conspiracy to artificially raise the price of bread between 2001 to 2015. The disclosure implicated other major grocery retailers such as Metro, Walmart, Empire's Sobeys and Giant Tiger, all of which have denied violating competition law. It also implicated the country's largest bread producers, Weston Foods (which George Weston controlled at the time) and Canada Bread.