On 7 December 2007, Sainsbury's, Asda, Safeway, Dairy Crest, Robert Wiseman Dairies and The Cheese Company have all admitted that they had secretly swapped information with each other to make shoppers pay more for milk and cheese in a £270m price-fixing conspiracy. The cartel agreed in principle with the Office of Fair Trading that they conspired against the interests of consumers. In their defense, the corporations have publicly said they had been under pressure to help farmers hit by foot-and-mouth, however, the OFT said "I think it is reasonable to say we don't doubt the purpose initially was to pass money back to farmers but, in general, there is no evidence that farm gate price increased as a result of the initiative. We don't know what happened to the money."