Tyson Foods, one of several U.S. chicken processors grappling with price-fixing lawsuits, said it has received subpoenas from the Justice Department for documents and information.
The disclosure in a regulatory filing on Monday followed a June request from the department’s antitrust lawyers that U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin temporarily halt document and record production in a 3-year-old civil suit accusing the industry of artificially inflating the price of broiler chickens, starting in 2008. The case has been combined with similar actions in federal court in Chicago.
“We are fully cooperating with the Department of Justice’s request,” the Springdale, Arkansas-based company said in the filing. The Attorney General’s Office in Florida requested information on possible anticompetitive behavior in the matter more than two years ago, the company said, and has followed up with a subpoena for all of the data submitted to federal investigators.
The Justice Department said in its civil filing that the delay on document production, a process known as discovery, was necessary to protect a grand jury investigation.
“There is very substantial overlap between the civil and criminal matters,” Justice Department lawyers wrote. “Although the requested stay may cause some short-term delay, granting the stay and allowing the grand jury investigation and any subsequent charges to streamline the court’s workload may significantly enhance judicial economy.”
Tyson Foods climbed 5.1% to $83.83 in New York trading on Monday after posting higher second-quarter profit than analysts had projected. Sales in its chicken business climbed 12%, as higher volume made up for a drop in prices, the company said.
Still, the poultry business isn’t performing as well as executives want, CEO Noel White said on a conference call with investors Monday. Along with operational issues, he said, “we experienced a slow start to the grilling season because of poor, wet weather, but we’re expecting to finish the summer strong, especially back-to-school season and Labor Day weekend.”
