Cal-Maine, Hickman’s and Versova Settle DOJ-State Suit for $3.3 Million Plus 53 Million Eggs Over Urner Barry Bid Coordination

The June 2026 complaint in the Northern District of Iowa details how Cal-Maine, Hickman’s and Versova submitted high-volume or non-executable bids on the Egg Clearinghouse and to Urner Barry to signal demand and sustain premium spot prices. Primary filings record explicit agreements among defendants to avoid competitive underbidding and to alert the market reporting service of supply tightness. These tactics directly raised the benchmark used for wholesale contracts and retail pricing across multiple states.

Egg affordability data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows shell egg CPI rising 60 percent between 2021 and 2023 before partial reversal. The settlement terms prohibit the three firms from exchanging pricing or bid information with competitors for five years and require ongoing compliance reporting. Monetary recovery flows to the 17 participating states while the egg donation provides in-kind restitution calibrated to annual per-capita consumption in those jurisdictions.

Documented producer incentives center on preserving margin during periods of avian flu culls and feed cost spikes; state attorneys general gain both cash and visible consumer relief without litigating to judgment. The record does not establish whether parallel conduct by non-settling firms continues. Future enforcement will turn on whether bid data submitted to Urner Barry and the Egg Clearinghouse shows persistent clustering above contemporaneous supply fundamentals.

Court approval is expected within 90 days. The Antitrust Division has signaled parallel investigations into other protein sectors using similar benchmark manipulation theories, with threshold triggers tied to sustained 20 percent deviations between reported and transaction prices.