The suit, filed in federal court in Maryland, names Cargill, Sanderson Farms, and Wayne Farms, as well as Webber, Meng, Sahl, and Co. and its president.
The DOJ claims in its lawsuit that the companies were involved in a multiyear conspiracy to exchange information about worker wages and benefits at poultry processing plants in order to reduce employee competition in the marketplace. Messages seeking comment were not immediately returned by the companies.
According to the government, the data consulting firm assisted in sharing information about workers' compensation with the companies and their executives. According to court documents, by carrying out the scheme, the companies were able to compete less fiercely for workers and reduce the amount of money and benefits they had to offer their employees, suppressing competition for poultry processing workers across the board.
The defendants and unnamed co-conspirators in the lawsuit employ roughly 90% of all chicken processing jobs in the country.
The suit is the latest example of the Justice Department's antitrust enforcement, which targets companies that the government believes engage in anticompetitive behavior in order to stifle workers or harm consumers. It also coincides with the department's ongoing investigation into labor abuses in the poultry industry.
"Through a brazen scheme to exchange wage and benefit information, these poultry processors stifled competition and harmed a generation of plant workers who face demanding and sometimes dangerous conditions to earn a living," said Doha Mekki, the Justice Department's antitrust division's principal deputy assistant attorney general.
The lawsuit was filed along with a proposed consent decree, which would require the companies to pay $84.8 million in restitution to workers who were harmed by the illegal information sharing network.
The agreement would also appoint a federal monitor chosen by the Justice Department to ensure compliance for the next decade. According to court documents, the consent decree would also allow Justice Department lawyers and investigators to inspect the poultry processors' facilities and interview their employees to ensure compliance with the terms.
Cargill and Continental Grain, of which Wayne Farms is a subsidiary, formed a joint venture to acquire Sanderson Farms, paying $203 per share in cash for a company that processed over 4.8 billion pounds (2.2 billion kilograms) of meat last year.
Sanderson Farms and Wayne Farms will be combined to form a new privately held poultry company. Poultry processing plants and prepared foods plants will be located in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas.
Wayne Farms employs over 9,000 people. Wayne Farms fresh and prepared chicken, Platinum Harvest premium fresh chicken, Chef's Craft gourmet chicken, Naked Truth premium chicken, and Ladybird premium chicken are among the brands it manufactures.
Sanderson Farms, based in Laurel, Mississippi, employs 17,000 people and operates 12 plants. Every week, it processes 13.6 million chickens.
The proposed consent decree would also address allegations that Sanderson Farms and Wayne Farms unfairly treated chicken farmers by employing a system that reduced their pay for poor performance.
Farmers sign contracts to raise chickens, and processing companies supply the birds and feed. Farmers' wages are then determined by how well they perform in comparison to other chicken growers. According to the Justice Department, the companies' use of that compensation method, known as the "tournament system," resulted in a failure to provide information to farmers in order for them to evaluate and manage their financial risk.
In general, chicken producers enter into long-term contracts with meat companies that, according to farmers, lock them into deals that fix their compensation at unprofitably low levels.
As part of the agreement, Sanderson Farms and Wayne Farms would be barred from reducing base payments to chicken growers in order to penalize them for poor performance. However, the consent decree would allow the companies to provide incentives and bonuses to growers.
On Monday, the proposed consent decrees with the poultry companies and the data company were filed in court. The proposals would also be published in the Federal Register under federal law, and people would have 60 days to send comments to the Justice Department before a court could accept and finalize the agreements.