Categories: Business

Tyson served a subpoena

A feathered subpoena. Tyson Foods, one of the nation’s largest poultry processors, is being subpoenaed by the Securities and Exchange Comission (SEC), Reuters reports. The company mentioned the development in the “Contingencies” section of its latest 10-Q earnings report, filed Monday.

The claim is that industry-wide efforts, enabled by the data clearinghouse Agri Stats, allowed poultry companies to artificially raise prices by reducing the chicken supply.

“We are cooperating with the investigation, which is at an early stage,” the report said. “Based upon the limited information we have, we believe the investigation is based upon the allegations in In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation.”

Related Post

We’ve covered the cases in question before, but here’s some brief background: in September, poultry buyers—including New York State meat distributor Maplevale Farms—filed class action suits alleging that Tyson and other leading poultry companies colluded to raise chicken prices. The claim is that industry-wide efforts, enabled by the data clearinghouse Agri Stats, allowed poultry companies to artificially raise prices by reducing the chicken supply—an effort that required plant closures, strategic egg exports, and the termination of whole flocks of breeding hens. The case, which Tyson is moving to have dismissed, is separate from another ongoing class action I reported on last week, which alleges Tyson, Pilgrims Pride, Sanderson Farms, and others also used Agri Stats to lower prices—this time, at the other end of the supply chain, on the farm.

Joe Fassler
Share
Published by
Joe Fassler

Recent Posts

Grist acquires The Counter and launches food and agriculture vertical

Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices,…

6 months ago

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

2 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

2 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

2 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

2 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

3 years ago