Sanderson Farms Not Guilty of Chicken Price-Fixing
A jury today (Oct. 25) found Sanderson Farms not guilty of engaging in a price-fixing scheme to inflate the price of chicken broilers, ending a case pending since 2016.
The unanimous verdict from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois concluded that Sanderson didn’t conspire to raise prices with other poultry companies by exchanging competitively sensitive non-public information about broiler prices, sales volume and demand, including through third-party co-conspirator Agri Stats Inc. – all that according to Bloomberg Law.
The case, brought by a group of chicken buyers, claimed Sanderson – now part of Wayne-Sanderson Farms -- and the other defendants coordinated to reduce production and increase the price of broilers between 2012 and 2018. Several other poultry producers, including Tyson Foods and Keystone Foods, have either been dismissed from the case or settled claims.