Lawsuit accuses Thai Union of dooming Red Lobster

lawsuit accuses – A liquidation trust formed after Red Lobster’s 2024 bankruptcy is suing Thai Union Group, accusing the Thai seafood company of interfering with leadership and pushing the Ultimate Endless Shrimp promotion—steps the trust says helped drive the chain into insolv

For a company built on shrimp and nostalgia, Red Lobster’s Endless Shrimp pitch was supposed to be simple: make diners feel like winners. Instead, a new lawsuit says the deal may have been designed to extract value right up to the point the business couldn’t hold itself together.

In June 2023, Red Lobster’s “Everyday Endless Shrimp” promotion was turned into a permanent menu item. Customers could get unlimited servings of shrimp for $20—an offer that, on paper, sounded like a loss leader. The lawsuit filed by the Red Lobster GUC Trust. a liquidation trust formed when Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy in 2024. alleges it wasn’t just unrealistic. It claims the company’s leadership was pushed toward it as part of a broader plan.

The trust is suing former majority stakeholder Thai Union Group, a Thai seafood company. The complaint alleges Thai Union treated Red Lobster “as little more than a distribution arm for its own products, milking whatever value it could from Red Lobster, especially as the Company became insolvent.”

The allegations reach beyond the menu. The lawsuit says Thai Union limited Red Lobster’s choice of seafood suppliers, interfered in its leadership, and pushed for the Endless Shrimp deal that it claims led to bankruptcy.

One flashpoint in the complaint is the appointment of Thai Union employee and Red Lobster Master Holdings GP Board member Paul Kenny as interim CEO. The trust alleges Kenny and Thai Union drove the former CEO to resign and then pushed Red Lobster to buy massive amounts of “overpriced Thai Union Shrimp. ” even as insolvency loomed.

Then came the “Everyday $20 Ultimate Endless Shrimp deal.” The lawsuit describes it as “a campaign to squeeze out every drop of value” from Red Lobster. It says leaders were warned the deal would result in significant losses. but proceeded anyway—and even banned one of Thai Union’s competing seafood suppliers.

The complaint paints a blunt cause-and-effect: “Overpriced” ingredients and the deal’s cheap price tag “led directly to Red Lobster’s bankruptcy filing.” It also says the promotion “turned a successful legacy Red Lobster strategy to drive traffic into its restaurants into a car crash.”

There’s also a number attached to the aftermath of the promotion. Even after Red Lobster raised the price from $20 to $25, the company still posted a record loss of $12.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Thai Union’s own financial disclosure is part of the picture too. Thai Union exited Red Lobster in early 2024, reporting a $19 million loss from the company across the first nine months of 2023.

Neither Red Lobster nor Thai Union Group has replied to a request for comment.

The lawsuit lands while Red Lobster is trying to reset its identity. Since the promotion’s collapse and the chain’s bankruptcy, Red Lobster has rebuilt—assisted by a cultural rebrand from its new CEO, Damola Adamolekun.

Adamolekun took the helm in August 2024, becoming the youngest CEO in the company’s history at 35. The complaint-free record of his early moves is clear: he struck the Ultimate Endless Shrimp deal from the restaurant’s permanent menu, joking, “I know how to do math.”

Under Adamolekun’s leadership, Red Lobster has brought Endless Shrimp back this April, but only for a limited time. The goal. as he framed it in a press release at the time. was to balance fan demand with a version of the promotion that fits the business “today” and “honors what made it special from the beginning.”.

“This is about putting our guests first and bringing back something they truly love,” Adamolekun said in the press release.

He added. “Endless Shrimp has been a part of Red Lobster’s legacy for 20 years and our guests have never stopped asking for it. We’re excited to bring it back. for a limited time. in a way that works for our business today and honors what made it special from the beginning. Because when our fans talk, we listen.”.

The court fight now forces a different question into the spotlight: was Endless Shrimp a loyal-brand move gone wrong—or, as the trust alleges, a pressure tactic used while the business was already weakening?

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