Winn-Dixie Stores and its sister grocery chain Bi-Lo has filed a lawsuit against major broiler companies in the United States, accusing them of conspiring to fix the price of chicken over the past ten years.
The suit, filed on January 12 in the U.S. District Court in Chicago, alleges that the companies conspired and destroyed breeder hens and eggs in an effort to hamper supply and drive up costs.
The lawsuit is very similar to one filed in 2016, in which the law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP alleged that Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, Pilgrim’s, Sanderson Farms, Simmons Foods, Koch Foods, JCG Foods, Wayne Farms, Mountaire Farms, Peco Foods, Foster Farms, House of Raeford Farms, Fieldale Farms, George’s Inc. and O.K. Foods.
A spokesperson for House of Raeford Farms confirmed in an email to WATT Global Media that the lawsuit filed by Winn-Dixie and Bi-Lo targeted essentially the same defendants as the 2016 lawsuit, and that the claims of the two pieces of litigation are nearly identical.
Tyson Foods, in response to the latest lawsuit, issued the following statement: “Add-on lawsuits like this one are common in antitrust matters but don’t change the fact that these claims are unfounded because we’ve not done anything wrong. We will defend our company in court.”
Status of earlier lawsuit
A federal judge in November 2017 refused to dismiss the earlier lawsuit.
However, Fieldale Farms, while not admitting guilt, offered to a $2.25 million settlement in April 2017. Meanwhile, Tyson Foods in 2017 received a letter from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to notify the company it has been found of no wrongdoing related to the allegations of the suit filed in 2016.
While most companies named in the lawsuits have declined to comment because it is a legal matter, the two largest companies named in the first suit, Tyson Foods and Pilgrim’s, both stated that the lawsuit lacked merit and the companies would welcome the opportunities to defend themselves in court.
