Overview
- A proposed settlement filed Thursday by the Justice Department and six states would resolve antitrust claims that Agri Stats helped meat processors coordinate prices in chicken, pork, and turkey.
- Agri Stats, a data broker for meatpackers, gathered nonpublic prices, costs, and output from processors and sent back detailed reports that buyers like grocers and restaurants could not see.
- The deal would stop Agri Stats from issuing sales reports or other nonpublic pricing data and would bar company- and plant-level reporting that let rivals track each other’s operations.
- The company would have to make most remaining reports available to all U.S. purchasers on equal terms, follow timeliness limits, submit to a court-appointed monitor, and run an antitrust compliance program, while subsidiary Express Markets can keep its less-detailed public price reports.
- The agreement now enters a Tunney Act 60-day public comment period before a judge may approve it, Texas officials said the company will also pay money to the states, and Agri Stats said it is pleased to move on while disputing the allegations.