McDonald's sues top meat packers for allegedly colluding to inflate the
price of beef
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[October 09, 2024] By
WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS
NEW YORK (AP) — McDonald’s has some beef with today’s largest meat
packers.
The fast food giant is suing the U.S. meat industry's “Big Four” —
Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef Packing Company — and their
subsidiaries, alleging a price fixing scheme for beef specifically. In a
federal complaint, filed Friday in New York, McDonald's accused the
companies of anticompetitive measures such as collectively limiting
supply to boost prices and charge “illegally inflated” amounts.
This collusion caused the beef market to become “a monopoly in which
direct purchasers were forced to buy at prices dictated by (the meat
packers),” McDonald's suit reads — later noting that the injury it has
sustained as one of those buyers is what “antitrust laws were designed
to prevent.”
McDonald's alleges that the meat packers' conspiracy dates back nearly a
decade, at least as early as January 2015, and continues today. Its suit
argues these companies' actions violate the Sherman Act, a federal
antitrust law.
Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef did not immediately respond to
requests for comment Tuesday. But these companies have faced federal
probes and allegations of price fixing before.
Lawsuits filed by grocery stores, ranchers, restaurants and wholesalers
have piled up over the years. Some litigation is still pending, although
meat packers and processers have opened their wallets in the past.
In 2022, for example, JBS agreed to a $52.5 million settlement in a
similar beef price-fixing lawsuit. And Tyson agreed to pay $221.5
million back in 2021, after facing class-action claims that alleged
purposely inflated chicken prices.
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The sign outside a McDonald's restaurant is seen in Pittsburgh, June
25, 2019. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Such settlements did not include
admissions of wrongdoing, however. Meat processors have previously
maintained that larger supply and demand factors out of their
control, not anticompetitive behavior, has caused prices to go up.
Meat processing plants were occassionally closed during the height
of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, and the industry has also
faced labor shortages that were worsened by the pandemic.
Still, lawsuits like the one from McDonald's point to increased
profit margins during the alleged time of conspiracy — and argue
that overall concentration of the market helps facilitate collusion.
“Conspiracies are easier to organize and sustain when only a few
firms control a large share of the market,” McDonald's suit reads.
Data from recent years has showed that Tyson, JBS, Cargill and
National Beef control more than 80% of the U.S. beef market
combined, the suit notes.
McDonald's is seeking a trial by jury. The Chicago-based chain,
which did not immediately respond to a request for further comment
Tuesday, has more than 39,000 locations across over 100 countries
worldwide, including about 13,000 in the U.S. The vast majority are
franchised.
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