Overview
- Agri Stats, which reached a proposed settlement Thursday with the Justice Department and six states, avoided a May 18 Minnesota trial over claims its reports let chicken, pork and turkey processors coordinate prices.
- The agreement would stop Agri Stats from issuing sales reports or other nonpublic pricing data to processors.
- It would also halt company- or plant-level reporting of production, cost and labor metrics that gave rivals near-real-time insight into each other's operations.
- Most information Agri Stats distributes would have to be offered to U.S. buyers on equal terms with time limits, overseen by a court monitor and a new antitrust compliance program, while subsidiary Express Markets could keep its less-detailed, widely available reports.
- The settlement now moves into a 60-day public comment and court review under the Tunney Act, with officials saying it should ease grocery costs and critics arguing the remedy falls short.