Source: Law 360
Perdue Farms has quietly settled one of many suits accusing the poultry giant of participating in a cartel of rivals that colluded to keep the price of chicken high, according to documents filed in an Oklahoma federal court.
The proposed class of chicken farmers that brought the litigation told U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby they had settled the suit Friday, although their notice was light on any details, including a dollar number.
But the filing did reveal the parties are still working to finalize all the documents and would make a formal request for the court’s approval soon, drawing the nearly five-year-old litigation to a close.
The chicken broiler antitrust suits have been percolating through various federal courts for about five years now. They started pouring in, accusing Perdue, Tyson Foods and other big poultry producers of collaborating to control the price and supply of so-called broiler chickens, which are bred for consumption.
Specifically, the suits accuse the poultry companies of using third-party data compiler Agri Stats to keep the plan going. The Agri Stats data was used to set compensation levels for chicken farmers, known as chicken growers in the industry, and according to the suits, allowed the companies to control everything from the prices they paid for the chickens to certain specifications of the facilities where the farmers work.
Buyers were generally one of three groups — direct purchasers of the broilers, indirect buyers that resold them and another set of indirect purchasers that bought them for consumption. Many of those suits were later consolidated, but others have continued to be litigated on their own, netting millions of dollars in settlements.
Tyson Foods agreed to shell out $221 million earlier this year to escape claims it had participated in a scheme to up the price of chicken and just last month inked another deal for $1.75 million to end similar claims about turkey prices.
And after the chicken suits came the turkey and pork ones, which led to much of the meat processing industry being swept up in allegations of price-fixing.
The pork suits began flowing in around 2018. Right now, 15 of the pork cases are consolidated in multidistrict litigation in Minnesota, with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation adding the last two suits to the fold in June.
Representatives for the parties did not immediately respond to request for comment Monday.
The farmers are represented by Gary I. Smith Jr. of Hausfeld LLP.
Perdue is represented by J. Douglas Baldridge of Venable LLP.
The case is Haff Poultry Inc. et al. v. Tyson Foods Inc. et al., case number 6:17-cv-00033, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
Read more at: https://www.law360.com/classaction/articles/1406251/perdue-inks-deal-to-secure-exit-from-chicken-price-fix-suit?copied=1
