Agricultural statistics must face price-fixing lawsuit, judge rules

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim ruled Tuesday that Agri Stats, a data analytics and consulting company, must face a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and six states. The lawsuit accuses Agri Stats of engaging in a price-fixing conspiracy with major processors of chicken, pork and turkey.

Indiana-based Agri Stats sought to dismiss the case, but Judge Tunheim denied the motion, finding that the government’s antitrust claims were sufficient for now to proceed. Agri Stats consistently denies any wrongdoing.

The lawsuit, brought last year by the Justice Department along with California, Texas, North Carolina and other states, accuses Agri Stats of unlawfully collecting and sharing sensitive competitive information in the meat industry. According to Reutersmajor meat processors used these reports to artificially inflate prices.

Judge Tunheim’s 24-page ruling emphasized that Agri Stats’ reports contained “detailed information about a subscriber’s position relative to the rest of the industry in terms of sales and live production.” This level of detail facilitated coordination among meat processors to keep prices high, the plaintiffs said.

Read more: Former Novartis executive sentenced to probation for participating in generic drug price-fixing scheme

Agri Stats began offering benchmark reports for the poultry industry in 1985 and later expanded to include turkey and pork data. However, in 2019, the company stopped reporting on turkey and pork and said it had no plans to reissue these reports. The lawsuit seeks to prevent Agri Stats from continuing to publish the reports.

In a related legal matter, a U.S. judge in Chicago dismissed similar claims against Agri Stats in a private antitrust lawsuit last year. This lawsuit was brought by restaurants, supermarkets, distributors and consumers. U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin ruled that merely providing a convenient form for submitting information did not make Agri Stats join in the alleged conspiracy.

Judge Tunheim made clear in his Tuesday order that he would not refer the government’s case to Chicago and emphasized that he was not bound by Judge Durkin’s earlier ruling.

Source: Reuters