JBS, Tyson, Cargill, National Beef Avoid Cartel Claims for Now

JBS SA, Tyson Foods Inc., Cargill Inc., and National Beef Packing Co. persuaded a federal judge in Minneapolis to tentatively toss antitrust claims over their alleged industrywide scheme to widen the “meat margin” between the cost of live cattle and the price of processed beef.

The ranchers and consumers who brought the case “do little to allege how the individual defendants acted,” instead “arguing that the market did this or that,” Judge John R. Tunheim wrote. That made it impossible to evaluate the “alternative economic explanations” offered by the meatpackers, he said.

The lawsuits accuse the ...