Chick-fil-A has accused more than a dozen poultry suppliers in a federal lawsuit of inflating prices on billions of dollars of chicken that it bought, reported The New York Times.
The company filed the lawsuit on Friday in US District Court in Chicago, accusing 16 chicken producers of colluding with one another to manipulate prices after the fast-food chain announced plans in 2014 to serve broiler chicken meat without antibiotics within five years.
Chick-fil-A, which is based in Atlanta, claims the suppliers violated federal antitrust laws when they shared confidential bidding and pricing information with one another by phone and text messages.
In the lawsuit, Chick-fil-A stated that the suppliers “possessed significant market power in the market for broilers” and that “their conduct had actual anticompetitive effects with no or insufficient offsetting procompetitive justifications.” The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and lawyers’ fees incurred by Chick-fil-A, which stated that its losses from price fixing would be established during a requested jury trial.
