Washington’s AG Files Suit Against Chicken Producers

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit Tuesday against 19 chicken producers, accusing them of conspiracy to inflate prices to maximize profits. The suit, filed in King County, also accuses those companies of rigging bids and coordinating supply reductions. An estimated 90% of consumers statewide, about seven million Washingtonians, buy products derived from the chickens these companies produce, according to the suit; and that does not include hospitals, nursing homes, colleges and others across the state.

“If you’ve eaten chicken in the last decade, this conspiracy touched your wallet,” Ferguson said in statement. “This conspiracy cost middle-class and low-income Washington families more money to put food on their table. I will hold these companies accountable for the profits they illegally made off the backs of hardworking Washington families.”

The lawsuit also accuses the companies of engaging in anticompetitive conduct, and manipulating prices going back to 2008. The 19 companies named in the Attorney General’s suit account for roughly 95% of all chicken produced in the U.S. The companies named in the lawsuit are:

Tyson Foods Inc.
Pilgrim’s Pride Corp.
Sanderson Farms Inc.
Perdue Farms Inc.
Koch Foods Inc.
Foster Farms LLC
Mountaire Farms Inc.
Wayne Farms LLC
Amick Farms LLC
George’s Inc.
Peco Foods Inc.
House of Raeford Inc.
Fieldale Farms Corp.
Case Foods Inc.
Mar-Jac Poultry
Claxton Poultry Farms
Simmons Foods Inc.
O.K. Foods Inc.
Harrison Poultry Inc.

Also named in the suit is Agri Stats, a company that collects and publishes industry data. The suit accuses the company, which claims to provide data anonymously, knowingly presented the companies’ data in a way that made them easy to identify, facilitating an illegal exchange of sensitive business information.

Click Here to read the entire lawsuit.

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