
Good morning! This is Bob Bragg with the April 30th edition of farm news and views
Last week, two class action lawsuits were filed in Federal Courts that will be of interest to both cattle producers and beef consumers.
On April 23, R-Calf USA filed suit alleging that meat packing companies Tyson, Cargill, National Beef and JBS, violated U.S. antitrust laws, the Packers and Stockyards Act, and the Commodity Exchange Act by unlawfully depressing the prices paid to American ranchers, and thereby inflating their own margins and profits. These four companies slaughter over 80% of all of the cattle raised in the U.S. This lawsuit seeks to recover the losses suffered by both cattle producers and traders who transacted live cattle futures or options contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange from January 2015 to the present.