One company has broken ranks in a price-fixing case against some of the largest chicken-processing companies in the United States.
In return, those who filed the lawsuit have let Fieldstone Farms of Baldwin, Georgia, off the hook.
Fieldale Farms has filed a motion asking a federal judge in Illinois to give final approval of its $2.25 million settlement with chicken buyers suing the nation’s top broiler companies for an alleged price-fixing scheme.
Fieldstone has agreed to co-operate in the ongoing lawsuit against 13 other defendants, including industry leaders such as Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, Sanderson Farms, and Perdue Farms.
The lawsuit was filed two years ago by Maplevale Farms of Falconer, New York.
It’s a foodservice distribution company.
The suit accuses the companies of working with market intelligence firm Agri Stats Inc. as a cartel, by sharing confidential information, including news on plant closings, hatching egg export levels and destroying breeder hens.
Multiple similar lawsuits have been filed since Maplevale’s complaint, and they have been folded into what is referred to collectively as the “Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation” under the U.S District Court for Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.
