Agri Stats Settlement Coming, DOJ Says

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) -- A settlement is expected to be announced later this week in an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against Agri Stats, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Monday, as part of a press conference updating an ongoing antitrust investigation into the meatpacking industry.

In September 2023, the DOJ filed a civil lawsuit against a data company for the meat industry, Agri Stats. That lawsuit alleged meat companies used information from Agri Stats reports to increase prices and reduce meat supplies.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, alleged the companies used the reports to push up exports to reduce U.S. domestic supplies and drive up costs for U.S. food companies, retailers and consumers.

A bench trial currently is set to begin on May 18, 2026, according to court documents.

U.S. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the settlement expected to be announced later this week would "directly affect" the prices of chicken, pork and turkey.

"Basically, what the companies in this concentrated industry were doing was individually sending in data on everything -- consumers, production, everything in between," Blanche said about the Agri Stats case.

"And what did that computer do? It spit back what the monopoly price should be. Justice department said, 'No more, no mas.'"

At the end of 2025, President Donald Trump directed his administration to investigate meatpackers and complained that beef prices were too high.

Trump's direction came just weeks after the DOJ ended a multi-year investigation into major meatpackers that started in Trump's first term.

An antitrust investigation is ongoing into the big four meatpackers including JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods and National Beef, the Trump administration said on Monday.

Of those four, JBS is a subsidiary of JBS S.A., based in Brazil, and National Beef's majority owner is Marfrig Global Foods, also based in Brazil.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said on Monday foreign ownership among the big four packing companies was a national security concern and a focus of the investigation.

"Half of these meatpacking giants, including the largest meatpacker in the world, are either foreign-owned or have significant foreign ownership and control, making them a threat not just to our cattle producers, but a threat to America itself," she said.

"And as time has gone on, it becomes more and more clear that food security is truly national security."

Rollins suggested during her remarks that foreign ownership of meatpackers has been "affiliated not just with corruption, but also cartels and, as recent as last week, slave labor, which is bad enough on its own, but it's also to the detriment of America's great independent ranchers and consumers."

The four companies control more than 85% of the beef-processing market and Blanche said the DOJ investigation would focus on a number of fronts.

"Two of the big four are primarily foreign-owned," he said.

"Multiple plant closures across the country, the current market structure and high concentration in the industry indicate anti-competitive activity. Since the president's executive order, the department has been actively investigating with a review of over three million documents."

Peter Navarro, the White House director of trade and manufacturing policy, said the administration's moves on the meat industry are part of the "most important war on the economic front" -- the so-called war on inflation -- and blamed industry concentration for beef price inflation.

Blanche also emphasized the administration's willingness to use the whistleblower program.

"We're not asking you to come forward and then see what happens," he said.

"We're saying if you come forward and if your information results in a finding, in a conviction -- and the amount of money is over $1 million, which in this industry is not a very high bar -- that you stand to recover up to 30%."

Texas and Colorado rancher Shad Sullivan said during the press conference that farmers, ranchers and consumers have "suffered" at the hands of industry consolidation.

"Just in the last generation, we have lost 665,000 beef cattle operations -- which is 50% down from 1980," Sullivan said.

"We have also lost 86,000 farmer feeders, which is 1,000 head and below."

DTN has reached out to Agri Stats, JBS, Cargill, Tyson and National Beef for comment. No comments had been received at publication time.

In June 2025, a U.S. federal judge granted Agri Stats a summary judgement in a lawsuit filed against the company accusing it of antitrust violations in the broiler industry. That case had been filed by companies that purchased broilers or were indirectly affected by higher prices. The company's president, Brian Snyder, had stated after the June court decision, "Agri Stats looks forward to the end of the baseless antitrust lawsuits against the company and the industry, so that we can focus on our core mission of helping to improve efficiency in the protein industry for our subscribers."

Read more on DTN:

"Antitrust Case Against Ag Data Firm," https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com

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