Ongoing Pork Antitrust Suit Racks Up Bills, Nearly $40 Million to be Paid Out
In 2018, price manipulation and insider information called for this class-action lawsuit against Hormel Foods Corp, the JBS USA unit of Brazil’s JBS SA; WH Group Ltd’s Smithfield Foods Inc.; Clemens Food Group, LLC; Seaboard Foods LLC; Indiana Packers Corporation; Triumph Foods, LLC; and Tyson Foods Inc., among others, as well as data provider Agri Stats Inc. Four years of litigation later, the bills are mounting for the ongoing case.
The direct purchaser, consumer indirect purchaser and commercial indirect plaintiffs claim the producers manipulated pork prices by publicly touting the need to cut production, thereby signaling to each other the conspiracy was on, and by sharing price, capacity, sales and demand data via Agri Stats, Reuters reports.
Dismissed once for being “sparse and conclusory” and lacking “parallel conduct,” the plaintiffs amended their case in August 2019.
In December 2020, JBS USA denied allegations, yet agreed to pay $24.5 million in a class action settlement.
Additional funds totaling more than $80 million from Smithfield Foods were added to the settlement fund in 2021, bringing the total to $100 million-plus.
Recently, Judge John R. Turnheim of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota ordered nearly $34 million in fees be granted to the direct purchaser plaintiffs in the case, according to Meatingplace.
Another $5 million has been ordered to be paid to the attorneys for current and ongoing litigation expenses.
Four representatives, Maplevale Farms Inc.; John Gross and Company Inc.; Ferraro Foods Inc.; and Ferraro Foods of North Carolina LLC; and Olean Wholesale Grocery Cooperative Inc. have also been awarded $25,000 each to compensate for additional work as being recognized as plaintiffs in the case.
The case is In re Pork Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, No. 18-01776.
