Eight major pork producers are now settling a class action lawsuit over claims they violated antitrust laws by illegally raising prices.
The companies — Agri Stats, Clemens, Hormel, JBS, Seaboard, Smithfield, Triumph and Tyson — have denied all allegations of wrongdoing but have agreed to settle the claims made in the class action by paying a combined sum of $117 million. Tyson will pay the highest amount at $85 million, according to the New York Post.
To be eligible for a cut of the payout, consumers must have indirectly purchased any of the affected pork products for personal use between June 28, 2014, and June 30, 2018. Consumers can determine if pork products they purchased are eligible by using the lawsuit’s product eligibility lookup tool.
The payouts are only available in 24 states. Those states are: Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.
Consumers and class members seeking settlement benefits have to submit a claim form online by October 29, 2026, or send the form to the settlement administrator postmarked by that date.
Payments will vary based on the number of valid submissions filed by the members.
The hearing for the settlement will be held on December 11, 2026, and payments will likely go out several weeks later.
The lawsuit claims that the meat processors involved in the settlement used data from Agri Stats, which is a data and consulting company, to exchange information about pork prices and production costs, allowing them to coordinate pricing.
The coordination allegedly made pork products more expensive for consumers.
The Justice Department has accused Agri Stats of organizing the information exchanges, which is a serious violation of antitrust laws.
The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division ended a similar operation involving egg producers earlier this year.
Cal-Maine Foods Inc., Hickman’s Egg Ranch Inc., Centrum Valley Holdings LLC, Versova Holdings LLC, and Versova Management Cooperative were sued by the federal government for "unlawful coordinated manipulation of egg prices."
The complaint alleged that Cal-Maine, Hickman's, and Versova coordinated to artificially inflate the daily price stats of Urner Barry publications, whose data influenced egg prices nationwide.
That lawsuit was settled in June. The companies involved had to pay a combined $3.3 million to the plaintiff states involved in the lawsuit and donate 53 million eggs to nonprofits and food banks in those states.
