Judge Approves Two Hormel Settlements in Pork Antitrust Case

A federal judge granted two orders Monday preliminarily settling for $7.4 million class actions alleging Hormel Foods Corp. engaged in a conspiracy to illegally restrict the supply of pork products to fix consumer prices.

Judge John Tunheim of the US District Court for the District of Minnesota signed the orders settling class actions between Hormel and two plaintiff classes, direct purchasers of pork products and commercial and institutional indirect purchasers of pork products.

• Hormel settled with purchasers of uncooked pork for use in commercial food preparation for $2.4 million.
• Direct purchasers of products from Hormel settled for $4.8 million.
• The ...