Quinn Emanuel Defeats $3 Billion Antitrust Class Action Against JBS in Unprecedented Industry Win
Quinn Emanuel has scored an unprecedented victory by defeating certification of a proposed class of cattle ranchers seeking $3 billion in damages from JBS, a large meatpacking company, and its co-defendants.
The victory defies a decade of class cert grants in the multitude of antitrust cases brought against meatpackers and poultry processers that are sometimes referred to as the “protein” antitrust cases.
Starting in 2019, plaintiffs began filing cases claiming that the nation’s biggest meatpackers—JBS, Cargill, National Beef, and Tyson—had colluded to depress the price of the cattle they purchase and elevate the prices of the beef they sell. The cases were consolidated in the District of Minnesota as the sprawling In re: Cattle and Beef Antitrust multi-district litigation (MDL), consisting of five separate class cases as well as dozens of individual lawsuits brought by large supermarkets and food distributors.
Facing a massive litigation that targeted one of its core businesses, JBS turned to Global Co-Managing Partner Mike Carlinsky. The case has been led by Sami H. Rashid, Co-Chair of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition practice, and Mike Bonanno, Chair of the firm’s Antitrust Investigations Practice.
High Hurdles, Shrewd Strategy
Defeating class certification faced significant hurdles given the decade of success plaintiffs have had certifying classes in other “protein” cases. Given that prior track record, Quinn Emanuel set its sights on dismantling the proposed class action filed on behalf of those indirectly upstream – those who sell cattle to an intermediary, which in turn sells cattle to the meatpackers.
After targeted motion practice at the pleading stage, the indirect plaintiffs made several amendments to their class definition, ultimately seeking certification of a definition-laden, 13-factor class definition that included criteria for cattle weight, skeletal size, thickness (a proxy for muscling and yield), and other limiting factors.
Our strategy at class certification was to emphasize the double-indirect nature of the sellers (someone who sold to someone, who then sold to a meatpacker), plus the multi-factor class definition, to differentiate this case from the other “protein” cases that have been certified.
Historic Victory
The strategy worked. Following a multi-day hearing, the court on July 16 found that even if the named plaintiffs potentially sold “feeder cattle” in some generalized sense, it was impossible to know for certain whether they sold cattle in the very specific way required by their own class definition. They couldn’t show that even a single animal was sold at the exact right time, with the exact right physical characteristics, to qualify for class membership.
Nor could they show that any such animal made its way to the defendants in the exact right way to meet the class definition.
The court held that those issues precluded class certification for a number of reasons under Rule 23, including ascertainability and preponderance.
The team that achieved this important class certification victory also included partner Jeremy Andersen, Kevin Janus and David Adler (Of Counsel), and associates Sebastian Becker, Max Meadows, Simon Barnas, Elle Mahdavi, Habib Abraham, Eva Quinones, and Alex Tschumi, along with our co-counsel at McGrath North.