Cargill has agreed to pay $32.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the company of conspiring with other turkey processors to artificially inflate prices. The preliminary settlement, filed in federal court in Chicago, still requires approval from U.S. District Judge Sunil Harjani.
The lawsuit, originally filed in 2019, involves direct purchasers of turkey meat, including John Gross and Company Inc. of Pennsylvania and Maplevale Farms Inc. of New York. The plaintiffs allege that Cargill and other major processors exchanged competitive information to manipulate turkey production levels, resulting in inflated prices.
This settlement marks the latest development in a series of legal battles against the meat industry over price-fixing allegations. Tyson Foods was the first company to settle in 2021, agreeing to pay $4.62 million.
Cargill, along with Tyson, has denied any wrongdoing while agreeing to settle. As part of the settlement, Cargill has agreed to cooperate with the plaintiffs in their ongoing pursuit of price-fixing claims against other major turkey processors, including Butterball, Perdue, and Hormel. This cooperation may include providing live witnesses at trial.
The settlement applies to purchases made between 2010 and 2017, with the plaintiffs’ attorneys estimating a class size of thousands of affected purchasers. They intend to request no more than 33% of the settlement amount in legal fees, approximately $12.3 million.
The turkey price-fixing litigation is part of broader antitrust cases targeting the meat industry, with other ongoing lawsuits focusing on the beef and pork sectors.
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