A 57-million-dollar settlement

JBS USA has now paid over $57 million to settle pork price-fixing allegations! The lawsuit alleges that the defendants conspired to fix, raise, maintain, and stabilize the price of pork, as of January 1, 2009, with the intent of increasing prices of pork in the US.

• A $20 million dollar agreement was set with a group of consumers. Previous to that, a $12.75 million dollar settlement with restaurants and retail companies and a $24.5 million dollar settlement with wholesalers were also approved.

JBS continues to deny the allegations and the court didn’t decide which side was right, but both of them agreed to settle to resolve the case. 

• The whole point of agreeing to a settlement is avoiding the long delay of trials and appeals, not to mention the risk for the class of moving this complex antitrust case forward. However, the case is still proceeding against other defendants.