U.S. District Judge, John R. Tunheim, has ruled that the bench trial of the action brought by the Federal Trade Commission and six states will begin on May 4th. The Defendant, AgriStats had argued that proceeding with the trial before a scheduled civil antitrust lawsuit would be prejudicial and would violate the Seventh Amendment rights of the company. This contention was rejected by Judge Tunheim based on a Supreme Court precedent. The presiding judge also invoked the Sherman Antitrust Act requiring courts to proceed “as soon as possible in government enforcement actions” and that to delay “would not serve the interest of justice”.
In United States v. AgriStats, the FTC and the states of California, North Carolina, Tennessee, Minnesota, Texas and Utah allege that the company “engaged in an unlawful information-sharing conspiracy with major broiler, chicken, turkey and pork processors”.
To date, the Co-Defendants represented by broiler and turkey integrators and pork packers have settled with Plaintiffs leaving AgriStats as the only Defendant.