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R-CALF files historic lawsuit against “Big Four” meat packers

A class action lawsuit has been filed in federal court alleging the nation’s four largest beef packers conspired to depress cattle prices and inflate their own margins.

R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard says their economic analysis suggests US cattle producers have paid the price for the actions of JBS, Cargill, Tyson, and National Beef Packing Company.  “The artificial depression caused by the packers conduct – that we are alleging – has reduced cattle prices by 7.9 percent per year beginning at least in January of 2015,” he says.  “And continuing through today.”

He tells Brownfield action was needed to prevent the US cattle industry from crumbling.  “If we are going to prevent the loss of competitive marketing channels, we have to take action – and very quickly,” he says.  “2015 was devastating to a lot of cattle producers as a result of the unprecedented collapse in prices.  We have to make sure this never happens again in our industry.”

Bullard says they want to see US cattle ranchers compensated for years of significant losses. 

Bullard alleges the “Big 4” conspired to artificially depress cattle prices through various means like: collectively reducing their slaughter volumes and purchases of cattle sold on the cash market in order to create a glut of slaughter-weight fed cattle, manipulating the cash cattle trade to reduce price competition amongst themselves, including by enforcing an antiquated queuing convention through threats of boycott and agreeing to conduct substantially all their weekly cash market purchases during a narrow 30-minute window on Fridays, transporting cattle over uneconomically long distances, including from Canada and Mexico, in order to depress U.S. fed cattle prices, and deliberating closing slaughter plants to ensure the underutilization of available U.S. beef packing capacity.

The Class Action was filed by Scott + Scott Attorneys at Law and Cafferty Clobes Meriwether & Sprengle on behalf of R-CALF USA and four cattle operations from Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Wyoming. 

AUDIO: Bill Bullard, R-CALF USA