Deere Gets Access to Competitor Data

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) -- John Deere will have access to confidential business information from several of its competitors after those companies fought in court to prevent the release as part of ongoing anti-trust, right-to-repair lawsuits.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Northern Illinois ruled on Aug. 8 that Deere has the right to access the documents acquired by the Federal Trade Commission as part of its investigation into allegations the company has illegally monopolized the farm equipment repair market by not allowing farmers to make specific repairs to their own tractors and other equipment.

Deere will have access to what CNH Industrial, Kubota and AGCO have called the "crown jewels" of sensitive business information including pricing data, financial reports and sales information.

In addition, once Deere has access to the information, then the 16 farmer plaintiffs in another ongoing lawsuit will have them as well, according to the court's order.

"Allowing the FTC to have access to the confidential information, including the contested documents, but not allowing Deere the same access puts Deere at a fundamental disadvantage in this critical litigation," the court said in its ruling.

"Without being trite, denying Deere access to this information is fundamentally unfair. Justice can't be done unless all parties have equal access to relevant information."

Also, the court said an existing confidentiality agreement in the case would protect the companies' interests against misuse of the information. The agreement limits who can view the documents, requires secure handling and mandates destruction once the court case is resolved.

The court ruled previously that Deere would not have to provide a database to the Federal Trade Commission, attorneys general for Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona and Michigan, as well as a group of farmer plaintiffs in the cases.

That dataset includes a comprehensive spreadsheet that aggregates financial metrics including dealer profitability, revenues from parts sales and repair services, customer pricing, operating returns, market share, cost absorption and incentives.

"The very few concerns the court has about misuse or inadvertent disclosure are further reduced by the nature of the confidential information," the court said its ruling last week.

"For example, a stated concern was that the confidential information might be filed on the court docket. But the contested documents are structured data. In the court's experience and as stated by one of the MDL plaintiffs' counsel, structured data is rarely filed. Moreover, as described by counsel, some of the contested documents contain a massive amount of data, such as containing a million lines of text in an Excel spreadsheet. Indeed, the spreadsheet is so massive that counsel couldn't obtain a piece of paper large enough to print the document on to show the court. What's more, some of the data is so granular that it would be inconceivable for a person, such as a consultant or an expert, to recall the information."

To date, the lawsuits against Deere have alleged the company monopolized the repair-service market for Deere agricultural equipment with onboard central computers known as ECUs.

After the Biden administration sued Deere, the company issued a rare response to the FTC action and vowed to defend itself "vigorously." The FTC lawsuit asked the court to make available to owners of large tractors and combines, as well as independent repair shops, access to Deere's "fully functional Service ADVISOR repair tool and any other repair resources available to authorized dealers."

The FTC also asked the court for a permanent injunction against the company.

The FTC lawsuit came about because of an investigation by the Biden administration that began in 2022 when the National Farmers Union and state-level farmer unions filed a complaint with the FTC.

The FTC lawsuit attempts to bring four counts against John Deere, including monopolization of the restricted repair services market, using an unfair method of competition in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act, as well as violations of the Illinois Antitrust Act and the Minnesota Antitrust Law.

The farmer plaintiffs from across the country have alleged Deere violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and seek damages for farmers who paid for repairs from Deere dealers beginning on Jan. 12, 2018, to the present.

Read more on DTN:

"Court Backs Deere Case in Data Pursuit," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

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

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