1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |When Sharing Becomes Collusion: Bipartisan AG Settlement Outlines Pricing Compliance

When Sharing Becomes Collusion: Bipartisan AG Settlement Outlines Pricing Compliance

Client Alert | 2 min read | 07.08.26

A recent enforcement action led by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison along with a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general signals an accelerating and coordinated crackdown on competitively sensitive information-sharing arrangements.

Agri Stats Settlement: Data Aggregation as a Vehicle for Collusion

In May, Attorney General Ellison, working with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and a bipartisan coalition of states, resolved a civil antitrust lawsuit against Agri Stats, Inc., a data-sharing and consulting firm that provides benchmarking reports to the chicken, pork, turkey, and commercial egg industries, alleging that Agri Stats’ exclusive sharing of competitively sensitive information with other meat processors violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.[1]

How It Worked: According to the complaint[2], Agri Stats produced weekly and monthly reports containing granular data on sales prices, costs, worker and farmer compensation, and output, shared exclusively among participating processors who accounted for more than 90% of broiler chicken sales, 80% of pork sales, and 90% of turkey sales. Econometric analysis showed the allegedly anticompetitive impact because processors were disproportionately more likely to increase prices on products identified as relatively low-priced than to decrease prices on relatively high-priced products.

Settlement Terms: According to the terms of the settlement[3], Agri Stats must now make its reports available to any purchaser, ending the exclusivity that enabled the scheme. Agri Stats is prohibited from the following:

  • Providing sales reports containing information that meat processors can use for anticompetitive purposes, including pricing data.
  • Publishing lists of participating processors or competitive rankings.

The Broader State AG Enforcement Landscape: A Pattern, Not an Outlier

The Agri Stats settlement is not an isolated event. Over the past six months, state attorneys general across the country have aggressively pursued data-sharing enforcement in the rental industry.

The enforcement wave has already produced a substantial and growing body of state settlements. On June 12, 2026, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb announced that Avenue5 Residential, LLC and Bell Partners, Inc. would pay a total of $1.4 million and change their business practices to resolve allegations that the companies conspired with other landlords, using RealPage pricing software, to inflate rents at over 50,000 apartment units throughout the district.[4]

Active state AG litigation in this space is equally significant. Current New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport has an ongoing antitrust lawsuit that commenced under former AG Matthew Platkin against RealPage and 10 of the biggest landlords operating in the state, alleging similar claims related to collusion to raise rent prices in violation of federal and state antitrust and consumer protection laws.[5]A federal judge in New Jersey partially dismissed the case on March 31, 2026, narrowing but not eliminating the claims.

Key Takeaways

  1. Data aggregators are not a compliance shield. Using a third-party data aggregator may not insulate a company from antitrust liability. Participating in a data-sharing program that pools nonpublic competitor data may constitute illegal information sharing, regardless of whether competitors coordinate directly.
  2. Information exchange programs come with risk. Sharing granular cost, production, sales, and pricing data across a dominant portion of an industry can support a finding of collusion.
  3. State AGs are a potent and coordinated enforcement force. The settlement involved a bipartisan multistate coalition working alongside or independently of the DOJ. Companies cannot rely solely on federal enforcement priorities to gauge risk.
  4. Litigation is ongoing and risk is not resolved. With multiple co-defendants still in active litigation, companies taking part in similar data-sharing arrangements should conduct immediate privilege-protected reviews of these arrangements.

[1] https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Communications/2026/05/07_AgriStats.asp

[2] https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Communications/2023/docs/AgriStats_Complaint.pdf

[3] https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Communications/2026/docs/03009_AgriStats_Judgment.pdf

[4] https://oag.dc.gov/release/attorney-general-schwalb-secures-14-million-two-dc

[5] https://www.njconsumeraffairs.gov/News/Pages/04232025.aspx

Contacts

Insights

Client Alert | 1 min read | 07.08.26

CAS Board Publishes Final Rule Rescinding CAS 404, 408, 409, and 4117

As part of its ongoing effort to conform the Cost Accounting Standards (“CAS”) to generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”), the CAS Board published a final rule rescinding CAS 408 (Accounting for costs of compensated personal absence) and CAS 411 (Accounting for acquisition costs of material).  The CAS Board also rescinded CAS 404 (Capitalization of tangible assets) and CAS 409 (Depreciation of tangible capital assets) but retained certain requirements of CAS 404 and 409, which will be located in new paragraphs of CAS 405 (Accounting for unallowable costs).  Specifically, the CAS Board retained the requirements currently located at CAS 404-50(d)(1), CAS 409-50(e)(5), CAS 409-50(j)(1), and CAS 409-50(j)(4), which the CAS Board explained are necessary to protect the Government’s interests.  Otherwise, the CAS Board determined that the requirements of CAS 404, 408, 409, and 411 overlapped with GAAP such that GAAP “may be applied reasonably as a substitute for CAS to support contract cost and pricing.”...

View All Insights