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Second lawsuit filed against beef packers

The nation’s largest beef packers are facing another lawsuit, this one alleging they conspired to inflate the prices consumers pay for beef.

In a statement, attorney Steve Berman with Hagens Berman attorneys refers to defendants Tyson, Cargill, National Beef and JBS as a cartel that forced consumers to pay inflated prices fixed by a scheme to limit beef supplies.

The lawsuit filed Friday in a Minnesota U.S. District Court claims the four packers and data sharing service Agri Stats Inc. conspired to maximize profits by both extracting all gains from ranchers raising cattle to artificially inflating the price of beef sold to consumers.

Berman says families have been overpaying for beef products, and he intends to put a stop to it through this lawsuit.

A separate lawsuit was filed last week against the same four meat packers by R-CALF USA alleging they conspired to depress cattle prices.

This is not the first time Agri Stats has been involved in this kind of legal action.  A similar lawsuit was filed last summer in Minnesota against them, Hormel, and Tyson for allegedly conspiring to raise pork prices.