Joining Koch Foods, Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods, Wayne-Sanderson Farms will pay $17 million to settle antitrust litigation. The class action lawsuit arose from claims that broiler integrators colluded to reduce grower payment through sharing data derived from an industry benchmark costing system. The alleged action occurred before acquisition of Sanderson Farms by the Cargill and Continental Grain consortium.
In a prepared statement, Wayne-Sanderson Farms opted to settle as “the most efficient way to move forward to avoid litigation” although the company did not acknowledge wrongdoing.