The country’s largest beef packers, JBS SA, Tyson Foods Inc., Cargill Inc., and National Beef Packing Co. are facing antitrust lawsuits over the alleged elaborate scheme to price-fix when it comes to the margin between the cost of live animals and the price of processed beef. This comes after a ruling last week from a Minnesota judge.
Judge John R. Tunheim denied their motion to get rid of the class-action antitrust suit, which was filed in April of 2019 by R-CALF USA. Now the case could press on as planned in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, where the packers were accused of pushing down the cost of cattle, while pushing the price of beef up from as far back as January 1st, 2015 to the present day.
The lawsuit states that the four companies broke the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by price-fixing, as well as the Packers and Stockyards Act, and the Commodity Exchange Act.
The lawsuit wants to help two classes of people who suffered losses from the packer’s actions. The first being cattle producers who sold livestock to any of the companies within the time period from January 2015 until now, while the second wants to help traders who “transacted live cattle futures or options contracts” on the CME within the same time period.
Judge Tunheim’s decision will allow the case to move forward to discovery so Plaintiffs can test their claims.
