Tyson Foods agreed to pay $85 million to settle a lawsuit by consumers who accused the largest U.S. meat company of conspiring with rivals to inflate pork prices by limiting supply in the $20 billion U.S. market.
The preliminary class action settlement disclosed on Wednesday is the largest in more than seven years of antitrust litigation by the consumers against pork producers, surpassing Smithfield Foods’ $75 million settlement in 2022.
It would boost consumers’ overall recovery to $208 million, including settlements with Brazil’s JBS, Hormel Foods and other defendants.
Tyson, based in Springdale, Arkansas, is the last publicly traded company to settle.
Its settlement requires approval by U.S. District Judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis.
Tyson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for the consumers did not immediately respond to similar requests.
Triumph Foods and data provider Agri Stats remain defendants.
Dozens of supermarket chains including Kroger, restaurant chains including McDonald’s, food producers and food distributors have also sued over pork prices.
Plaintiffs said the alleged conspiracy ran from 2009 to 2018, and was intended to increase the defendants’ profits, as well as prices.
Similar litigation alleging price-fixing of beef, chicken and turkey is pending in Minnesota and Chicago federal courts.
The case is In re Pork Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, No. 18-01776.
After several attempts at posting this article in various locations I finally got a response from a party defending a bank’s request to be an additional insured. The response read:
Lenders have deep pockets so are often named, whether rightly or not, as co-defendants along with the borrower when someone suffers injury or damage because of the borrower’s operations. This can be an issue particularly in the context of loans secured by real estate. Because the lender is at arm’s length from control, you are right that they shouldn’t be implicated, but often they get dragged in anyway. Having additional insured status helps address defense expense until the lender can get dismissed. The borrower is probably obligated to indemnify the lender anyway, so this is not as misdirected as you suggest.
I am so happy to finally have someone offer an opinion. While I think this is a great point, unfortunately, this opinion does not offer valid reasoning for additional insured status. This is a reason without effect.
ISO’s commercial general liability (CGL) policy extends insured status to three “levels” of insureds within the policy language: