My gut says yes. But, there's no law requiring them and there's no law regulating them as far as i know, so, maybe not.
I would think that would just qualify generally as fraudulent inducement, but wouldn't be surprised if there were specific food/beverage laws that would also make such actions illegal.
There are laws and there are ethics. Any distributor that would change any dating on any packaging is a creep and doesn't deserve any business from the buying public. Suspicion is a bad thing, and proof is often hard to manage, but my bet is that anyone who may alter dating is going to get caught by someone along the line. There is no room for this under any circumstance.
"Born On®" is a registered US Trademark owned by Anhueser-Busch. They would not be happy with an AB wholesaler who changes the keg dates, and have a history of suing wholesalers who simply leave old beer on the shelves.
It was my assumption that the Op used the term "born on" rather generically as opposed to corporation specific terminology. It seems to have slipped into our vernacular, much to AB's delight. Either way, my opinion above remains the same.
