Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST—D. Minn.: Court splits the difference in cattle and beef price-fixing litigation, certifying four classes while rejecting three others, (Jul 17, 2026)

By Wendy Biddle, J.D.

Court certifies downstream purchaser and cattle producer classes, but denies certification to feeder cattle sellers and futures traders.

Nearly a decade of alleged price manipulation in the American beef industry reached a pivotal moment when the district court in Minneapolis issued class certification rulings in the multidistrict litigation accusing the nation's four largest beef packers of conspiring to restrain cattle slaughter and inflate beef prices between 2014 and 2020. Across two opinions, one for the Cattle Plaintiffs and Indirect Seller Plaintiffs Classes and another one for the Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs, Commercial and Institutional Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs, and Consumer Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs classes, the court certified four separate classes spanning both ends of the supply chain, while rejecting three others and largely turning back the beef packers’ efforts to knock out the plaintiffs' expert economists before trial. In a third ruling, the court also granted Conagra’s motion to dismiss the Cargill defendants from Conagra’s claims against it (In Re: Cattle and Beef Antitrust Litigation, No. 0:22-md-03031-JRT-JFD (D. Minn. Jul. 16, 2026)).

Background. The case originates from a wave of price-fixing litigation against the four dominant American beef packers (Cargill, JBS, National Beef, and Tyson) that together account for over 80 percent of the fed cattle bought, slaughtered, and sold as beef in the United States. Beginning in 2019, a series of class actions and individual actions were filed against the beef packers alleging a conspiracy to generate elevated beef profit margins in violation of federal and state antitrust laws, the Packers & Stockyards Act, and the Commodity Exchange Act. The litigation involves two broad categories of plaintiffs: Upstream Plaintiffs, who directly or indirectly sold cattle to Defendants (the Indirect Seller/Feeder Plaintiffs and the Cattle Plaintiffs), and Downstream Plaintiffs, who directly or indirectly purchased beef from Defendants (the Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs (DPPs), Commercial and Institutional Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs (CIIPPs), and Consumer Indirect Purchase Plaintiffs (Consumer IPPs).

Procedurally, the case has a layered consolidation history. In September 2021, the District of Minnesota began consolidating direct purchaser plaintiff cases for pretrial proceedings. Several plaintiff groups—including the Cattle Class Plaintiffs, Consumer IPPs, CIIPPs, and some direct action plaintiffs—then stipulated to coordinate all related cases for pretrial purposes, which the court agreed to, renaming the consolidated docket "In re Cattle and Beef Antitrust Litigation."

In 2022, additional individual actions raising the same core issues were filed in other federal districts. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1407(a), the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation formed MDL No. 3031 on June 3, 2022, transferring three cases to the District of Minnesota after finding that centralization would serve the convenience of the parties and witnesses and promote efficient conduct of the litigation. The court then consolidated the MDL cases under a master docket and, through a series of pretrial orders, appointed liaison counsel for the various plaintiff groups and established a process for additional direct action plaintiffs to join the MDL, many of whom have since done so, though they are not relevant to the class certification motions at issue.

All plaintiffs filed their motions for class certification on September 25, 2024, setting up the extensive expert discovery and Daubert briefing that the current opinions ultimately resolve.

Downstream purchasers. On the downstream side, the court certified three groups: Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs (DPPs), Commercial and Institutional Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs (CIIPPs), and Consumer Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs (Consumer IPPs). Each had built its certification bid around a regression analysis from its own economist and the beef packers moved to exclude all three under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

The court applied the Eighth Circuit's more forgiving Daubert standard for the certification stage, under which admissibility doubts favor the proponent because the court itself, not a jury, acts as gatekeeper. The court found that omitting fed cattle prices as a variable went to weight rather than admissibility, and that competing critiques of the experts' methodology amounted to a "battle of the experts" better resolved at trial or summary judgment. The court also declined to require a standalone "but-for" production model, accepting that the experts' overcharge methodologies already captured the alleged conduct's price effects.

Predominance was the crux of the opinion for the downstream plaintiffs. The court accepted regression-based overcharge estimates of 12.5% for the DPP class and 12.6% for the CIIPP class, holding that averaging methodologies aren't inherently unreliable so long as the expert grounds the inference, that virtually every class member was affected, in market evidence and economic theory. Variations among state antitrust and consumer protection laws didn't "swamp" the common issues, the court found, and the Consumer IPP class survived an ascertainability challenge because consumers could self-identify by affidavit given their pattern of repeat purchases.

Not everything went the Downstream Plaintiffs' way: the court denied, without prejudice, the CIIPPs' request for a Rule 23(b)(2) injunctive class, finding monetary relief predominated and that the proposed injunctive relief lacked the particularity Rule 65(d) demands. The CIIPPs may try again later. The court appointed each group's proposed interim co-lead counsel as permanent class counsel.

Upstream plaintiffs. A companion order the same day addressed the "Upstream Plaintiffs," ranchers and feedlot operators on the selling side of the alleged conspiracy, with a more mixed result. Two Indirect Seller Plaintiff classes (also called Feeder Cattle Plaintiffs) sought certification of both a damages class and an injunctive class covering those who sold feeder cattle to feedlots that later resold to the beef packers. Both failed. The court found the named plaintiffs couldn't show, with common proof, that any specific animal met the technical criteria for "Feeder Cattle" (frame size, grade, and weight) or that such an animal was later resold to a beef packer. Reliance on statistical probabilities wasn't enough, and since even the named plaintiffs' own class membership couldn't be established, predominance collapsed for both the damages and injunctive classes.

The Cattle Plaintiffs, who sold fed cattle directly to the defendants, fared better on their core claim. The court certified their Producer Class, though it carved out U.S. Premium Beef shareholders because of a potential conflict tied to named plaintiff Weinreis Brothers Partnership, and rejected Defendants' ascertainability challenge despite complications from "custom feedlots" that obscure cattle ownership. On predominance, the court credited expert Russell Lamb's regression analysis and common-average damages model, pointing to market concentration, inelastic supply and demand, and high entry barriers as evidence of common impact across the class period.

Two other Cattle Plaintiff requests fell short. The proposed Exchange Class of Live Cattle Futures traders was denied certification after the court found more than a de minimis share of traders suffered no injury, since over 95% of relevant contracts were liquidated during a stretch when even the defendants' own expert found no price suppression. And the Cattle Plaintiffs' injunctive relief class was denied without prejudice for the same specificity problems that doomed the CIIPPs' request. The court denied defendants' Daubert motion against Dr. Lamb and dismissed as moot its motions against experts tied to the classes that weren't certified.

Together, the two rulings certify four classes; DPP, CIIPP, Consumer IPP, and Producer. The court rejected the Feeder Cattle damages and injunctive classes and the Exchange Class, setting the stage for the certified groups to press their claims toward trial or summary judgment.

Additionally, in a third companion order, the court dismissed with prejudice all claims brought by plaintiff Conagra against Cargill Inc. and Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. (collectively, the Cargill defendants). Conagra filed the Stipulation of Dismissal with prejudice which the court granted.

The Case is No. 0:22-md-03031-JRT-JFD.

Judge: Tunheim, J.

Attorneys: Cody Douglas McCracken (Cuneo Gilbert Flannery & Laduca LLP) for Commercial and Institutional Indirect Purchaser Plaintiffs. Bennett Rawicki (Hilgers PLLC) for Cargill, Inc. Adam Smith (McGrath North Mullin & Kratz PC) for JBS S.A and Swift Beef Co.

Companies: Cargill, Inc.; JBS SA; Swift Beef Co.

Cases: Antitrust MinnesotaNews