Chicken farm settles price-fixing claims with 12 restaurants

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Chicken price-fixing settlement overview: 

• Who: Chicken production company George’s has settled claims from 12 restaurant companies.
• Why: The restaurants claimed George’s conspired with other food producers to inflate and fix chicken prices.
• Where: The chicken price-fixing settlement was filed in an Illinois federal court.

Chicken production company George’s has settled claims from 12 restaurant companies—including White Castle, Bojangles and Golden Corral—that alleged the company conspired with other food producers to inflate and fix chicken prices.

In a series of dismissal orders filed Oct. 28 in an Illinois federal court, the twelve restaurant and franchise companies ended their claims against George’s Inc. and George’s Farms Inc.

The settling plaintiffs are White Castle, Bojangles, Golden Corral, Boston Market, Johnny Rockets, El Pollo Loco, WZ Franchise Corp., Shamrock Foods, United Food Service, FIC Restaurants, Captain D’s and Barbeque Integrated.

The terms of the settlements are confidential, Law360 reports.

Chicken price-fixing investigation leads to wide-ranging legal action

The court is currently hosting a multidistrict litigation against George’s and other chicken production companies, including Tyson, Perdue and Pilgrim’s Pride, after a number of complaints were filed against the nation’s largest broiler chicken sellers in 2016.

The U.S. Department of Justice also revealed it was investigating anti-competitive conduct in the broiler chicken market in 2019.

The companies have been accused of working together to raise the prices for broiler chickens by limiting production,and exchanging information about prices, sales volume and capacity. 

Now a widespread multidistrict litigation, claims have come in from individual chicken buyers, direct purchasers and end-user consumers, while a number of individual settlements such as these ones have already been reached with producers. 

For example, Tyson Foods reached a settlement agreement in March to resolve claims made by the grocery store chain Aldi that it was part of the alleged yearslong price-fixing scheme for broiler chickens. 

George’s made a separate $1.9 million deal with end-user consumer plaintiffs for the same alleged price-fixing conspiracy. 

That deal was part of $181 million in total end-user settlements made by George’s and five other defendants that the court approved in 2021, Law360 reports.

Have you purchased a broiler chicken produced from George’s farms? Let us know in the comments! 

The restaurants are represented by Robert W. Turken, Scott N. Wagner and Lori P. Lustrin of Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod LLP.

The Chicken price-fixing multidistrict litigation is In re: Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 1:16-cv-08637, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

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