Burford Notches Win in Quest to Take Over Sysco Chicken Lawsuits

Sysco Corp. can hand off its claims in a massive chicken price-fixing lawsuit to the outside funder that staked the litigation, a federal judge in Illinois ruled Thursday.

The ruling is a win for Burford Capital Ltd., which gave Sysco $140 million to pursue multiple price-fixing lawsuits against meat producers. The companies agreed that Burford would take over the claims after the funder balked at Sysco’s plan to settle at least some for an amount that Burford deemed too low.

Meat producers have opposed efforts to substitute Burford into the cases, arguing that the funder doesn’t have a direct connection to the litigation. A federal judge in Minnesota in February rejected a similar substitution request in pork and beef price-fixing lawsuits, stating that Burford’s quest to maximize a return on its investment would hinder settlement.

Approving the substitution in the chicken litigation, Judge Thomas M. Durkin on Thursday called it “an unsurprising and logical result of the dispute between Sysco and Burford that arose from the funding agreement.”

“Like litigation funding agreements, such assignments are a fact of modern litigation,” Durkin said.

The case is In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litig., N.D. Ill., No. 16-cv-8637, 3/21/24.