The Chicken Comes Home To Roost: AG Busts Poultry Price-Fixing Ring

Seattle WA

19 May, 2022

5:38 PM

Description

SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson is celebrating a legal victory that has won Washington state nearly three quarters of a million dollars in punitive poultry penalties. Ferguson and his office on Thursday announced that Mar-Jac Poultry has agreed to pony up (or in this case, perhaps, chicken up) $725,000 to settle a lawsuit over an alleged chicken price-fixing operation. Mar-Jac Poultry is one of 19 chicken producers that the Attorney General's Office alleges was involved in a "widespread illegal conspiracy to inflate and manipulate prices, rig contract bids and coordinate industry supply reductions to maximize profits", the Attorney General's Office said, but the only one of those chicken producers that has agreed to a settlement thus far. The suit alleges that the companies used a data service, Agri Stats, Inc., to exchange sensitive information, cut production and drive up costs, generating millions in illegal profits. The 19 broiler chicken producers named in the AGO's lawsuit produce about 95 percent of the "broiler" chickens sold in the country. Broiler chicken means chicken produced for consumption, so everything from chicken nuggets to regular old chicken breasts. The AGO's office estimates that 7 million Washingtonians have bought chicken these companies produce, and as such have all suffered from their alleged price-fixing racket. "If you've eaten chicken in the last decade, this conspiracy touched your wallet," Ferguson said. "This is an important step toward accountability. We aren't done yet." The other chicken producers named in Washington's lawsuit are: Tyson Foods, Inc.Pilgrim's Pride Corp.Sanderson Farms, Inc.Perdue Farms, Inc.Koch Foods Inc.Foster Farms, LLCMountaire Farms Inc.Wayne Farms, LLCAmick Farms, LLCGeorge's, Inc.Peco Foods, Inc.House of Raeford Farms, Inc.Fieldale Farms Corp.Case Foods, Inc.Norman W. Fries, Inc. d/b/a Claxton Poultry Farms, Inc.Simmons Foods, Inc.O.K. Foods, Inc.Harrison Poultry, Inc. As part of its settlement deal, Mar-Jac Poultry has agreed to information and documentation that may help indict its other co-conspirators. Under the consent decree, if the company engages in price fixing again any time in the next five years, the Attorney General's Office says it can go to court and seek civil penalties.