U.S. agricultural giant Cargill has agreed to pay USD 15 million (EUR 14.7 million) to resolve claims from the U.S. Department of Justice it was involved in a scheme to fix the wages of workers in its poultry-processing facilities.
A proposed consent decree issued by the DOJ said Cargill – which also has aquafeed operations – and two other poultry firms, as well as a data-consulting firm illegally exchanged information about wages and benefits for poultry processing-plant workers and collaborated on compensation decisions, in violation of the Sherman Act.
Though it agreed to the settlement, Cargill denied wrongdoing, saying it agreed to the penalty to avoid “litigation and distractions,” according to Reuters.
"Through a brazen scheme to exchange wage and benefit information, these poultry processors stifled competition and harmed a generation of plant workers who face demanding and sometimes dangerous conditions to earn a living," U.S. DOJ Antitrust Department Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki said in a statement.
The other firms involved in the settlement are Sanderson Farms and Wayne Farms. Along with unnamed co-conspirators, they control 90 percent of all chicken-processing jobs in the United States. The government contends the data-consulting firm, Webber, Meng, Sahl and Co., shared information about their workers' compensation, allowing them to reduce their competition for workers, according to the Star Tribune. The firms will pay a combined USD 84.8 million (EUR 82.9 million) to resolve the claims.
Cargill, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, previously settled claims of price-fixing in the high-fructose corn syrup market in 2004, and was sued in June 2022 by foodservice giant Sysco, which accused Cargill and other meat suppliers of colluding to fix the price of beef sold in the U.S.
The seafood industry has dealt with its own allegations of price-fixing, with Norwegian salmon farmers Mowi, SalMar, Lerøy Seafood, Grieg Seafood, and Cermaq Group agreeing in May 2022 to settle a civil complaint alleging they conspired to fix the prices of salmon they sold in the U.S. The U.S. DOJ issued subpoenas related to the claims in November 2019.
And a tuna price-fixing scandal that occurred between 2011 and 2013 cost Bumble Bee Foods, StarKist, and Chicken of the Sea hundreds of millions of dollars in criminal fines and civil settlements.
Photo courtesy of Mike Mareen/Shutterstock
