Nov 14, 2022 | Antitrust, Blog, Overtime & Wages
Employees of one or more of the following companies, their subsidiaries and/or related entities in the continental United States anytime between January 1, 2014 and the present are encouraged to contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C., John Kehoe, Esq., (215) 792-6676, Ext. 801, [email protected], [email protected], for a free evaluation of potential legal claims:
JBS USA Food Company; Tyson Foods, Inc.; Cargill, Inc.; Cargill Meat Solutions Corp.; Hormel Foods Corp.; American Foods Group, LLC; Triumph Foods, LLC; Seaboard Foods, LLC; National Beef Packing Co., LLC; Iowa Premium LLC; Smithfield Foods Inc.; Smithfield Packaged Meats Corp.; Agri Beef Co.; Washington Beef, LLC; Perdue Farms, Inc.; Agri Stats, Inc.; Webber, Meng, Sahl & Company, Inc. d/b/a WMS & Company, Inc. (collectively, “Defendants” or “Defendant Processors”).
According to a class-action complaint filed on November 11, 2022 in United States District Court for the District of Colorado, since at least 2014, the Defendants have conspired and combined to fix and depress the compensation paid to employees at red meat processing plants in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1.
The class-action complaint alleges that the Defendant Processors have compensated Class Members with hourly wages or annual salaries and employment benefits. Each Defendant Processor, according to the complaint, has established a schedule for hourly wage rates, annual salaries, and employment benefits based on the specific position and years of experience of the Class Members. Further, senior executives of each Defendant Processor established and approved those hourly wage rates, annual salaries, and employment benefits at corporate headquarters during the Class Period. Allegedly, this highly-regimented process for determining compensation allowed Defendant Processors to compare compensation practices – and collectively suppress compensation – across their workforces.
The Defendant Processors, allegedly, implemented, monitored, and enforced their conspiracy to fix and depress compensation paid to Class Members through a series of overt acts, including, for example, “secret compensation surveys, “secret annual meetings,” and “direct communications among executives,” whereby Defendant Processors’ senior executives extensively discussed, compared, and, in turn, further suppressed compensation through email and phone communications. Those conspiratorial communications, according to the complaint, included both group emails to senior executives for purposes of aligning Defendant Processors’ compensation practices and bilateral communications meant to adopt time-sensitive plans for future compensation.
Moreover, in furtherance of their conspiracy to depress Class Members’ wages, the Defendant Processors also, allegedly, entered into illegal “no poach” agreements with each other to refrain from recruiting one another’s employees.
The Defendant Processors, according to the complaint, also engaged in the conspiracy to increase their profits by reducing labor costs, which comprise a substantial share of each Defendant Processor’s total operating costs. The intended and actual effect of Defendants’ conspiracy to fix compensation, allegedly, has been to reduce and suppress the wages, salaries, and benefits paid to Class Members since January 2014 to levels materially lower than they would have been in a competitive market.
IF YOU WERE EMPLOYED BY ONE OF THE AFOREMENTIONED COMPANIES, THEIR SUBSIDIARIES AND/OR RELATED ENTITIES ANYTIME BETWEEN JANUARY 1, 2014 TO THE PRESENT, YOU MAY HAVE LEGAL CLAIMS AND ARE ENCOURAGED TO CONTACT KEHOE LAW FIRM, P.C. FOR A FREE EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL LEGAL CLAIMS.
Mar 8, 2022 | Antitrust
American Bankers Association, FactSet Research Systems Inc. & S&P Global Inc. Subject of Antitrust Class Action Alleging Monopolistic Conduct, Conspiracy to Restrain Trade
You may have legal claims, if you are a data user in the U.S. that entered subscription agreements for CUSIP number licensing fees and paid those licensing fees directly to S&P’s (and now FactSet’s) CUSIP Global Services (“CGS”) division between March 7, 2018 through March 7, 2022 (the “Class Period”).
On March 7, 2022, a class action lawsuit was filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, against the American Bankers Association (“ABA”), FactSet Research Systems Inc. (“FactSet”), and S&P Global, Inc. (“S&P).
According to the class action complaint, the antitrust lawsuit stems from S&P’s abuse of its monopoly power in the financial instruments identification market, and the Defendants’ conspiracy to maintain S&P’s (and now FactSet’s) monopoly power and unreasonably restrain trade in the financial instruments identification market, in order to extract artificially inflated payments from investors and other users of financial data through subscription agreements to access CUSIP numbers.
Plaintiff and other class members, according to the complaint, receive no financial data services from Defendants. Instead, they obtain financial data from other sources that necessarily include CUSIP numbers. Defendants, allegedly, can hold up Plaintiff and members of the Class to pay prices unilaterally determined by the Defendants, not because there is anything special or valuable about the string of numbers and letters they generate, but merely because CUSIPs have been designated as the standard.
Additionally, the Defendants, allegedly, have conspired to prevent competition from, and the implementation of, alternative free, or far more cost-friendly financial instrument identifiers of equal or superior efficiency and quality.
The class action complaint alleges that the Defendants extract the subscription fees through unfair, deceptive, and threatening business practices throughout the United States, including by threatening to cut off investors’ access to data, typically provided by third parties (e.g., Bloomberg) that is essential to the continuation of investors’ businesses. Further, S&P, through its CGS division, breached its commitment to the Accredited Standards Committee X9 to offer market participants, such as the Plaintiff and Class members, fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) pricing for CUSIPs.
Allegedly, the Defendants conspired to maintain and perpetuate S&P’s financial instruments identifier monopoly and unreasonably restrain trade to collect substantial and unreasonable licensing fees (shared by S&P and ABA), which are not connected to the value of any particular CUSIP. According to the complaint, they can only charge these fees due to S&P’s monopoly power by virtue of CUSIP being the standard.
According to the complaint, S&P generates revenue for licensing the right to CUSIPs, which it shares with the ABA in at least three ways.
First, S&P charges securities issuers a fee (usually about $280 per CUSIP number) to obtain CUSIP numbers for its securities. Second, S&P charges data providers (e.g., Bloomberg) licensing fees for using CUSIPs in its databases. Third, and more recently, S&P demands that data providers’ end users, such as the Plaintiff, or entities that otherwise download CUSIP numbers as part of financial data for their own use (“data users”), enter their own subscription agreements with S&P under the threat of stripping the CUSIP numbers from their data feeds if the unilaterally determined licensing fee is not paid. Defendants, according to the complaint, have a clear interest in requiring that all data users use only the CUSIP identifier system, because, upon information and belief, the ABA retains 30% of CGS’s licensing fees from all data users with the remainder kept by S&P (and now FactSet).
If you are a data user in the U.S. that entered subscription agreements for CUSIP number licensing fees and paid those licensing fees directly to S&P’s (and now FactSet’s) CUSIP Global Services (“CGS”) division between March 7, 2018 through March 7, 2022 (the “Class Period”), you are encouraged to contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C., Michael Yarnoff, Esq., (215) 792-6676, Ext. 804, [email protected], [email protected], for a free, confidential consultation and no-obligation evaluation of potential legal claims.
Jan 28, 2022 | Antitrust
Conspiracy Aimed At Suppressing Pay For Essential Workers During COVID-19 Pandemic
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury in Portland, Maine, returned an indictment charging four managers of home health care agencies with participating in a conspiracy to suppress the wages and restrict the job mobility of essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the one-count felony indictment filed on January 27, 2022 in United States District Court for the District of Maine, four Portland residents, Faysal Kalayaf Manahe; Yaser Aali; Ammar Alkinani; and Quasim Saesah, all owners and/or managers of home health care agencies, conspired to eliminate competition for the services of Personal Support Specialist (“PSS”) workers by agreeing to fix the rates paid to these workers and by agreeing not to hire each other’s workers.
The indictment is the first in an ongoing federal antitrust investigation into wage fixing and worker allocation schemes in the PSS home health care industry.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs
Antitrust Enforcement & Civil Lawsuits
The goal of the antitrust laws, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, is to protect economic freedom and opportunity by promoting free and fair competition in the marketplace. Competition in a free market benefits American consumers through lower prices, better quality and greater choice. Competition provides businesses the opportunity to compete on price and quality, in an open market and on a level playing field, unhampered by anticompetitive restraints.
Federal antitrust laws apply to virtually all industries and to every level of business, including manufacturing, transportation, distribution, and marketing. The antitrust laws prohibit a variety of practices that restrain trade, such as price-fixing conspiracies, corporate mergers likely to reduce the competitive vigor of particular markets, and predatory acts designed to achieve or maintain monopoly power.
There are three main ways in which the Federal antitrust laws are enforced: criminal and civil enforcement actions brought by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice; civil enforcement actions brought by the Federal Trade Commission; and lawsuits brought by private parties asserting damage claims.
Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. investigates and prosecutes class action antitrust matters to recover damages on behalf of businesses, distributors, wholesalers, employees, and consumers who may have been harmed by illegal monopolies; unlawful no-poach and wage-fixing agreements between employers; corporate cartels or other anticompetitive conduct or arrangements, such as price fixing, bid rigging, and agreements to allocate (“divide up”) customers to reduce or eliminate competition.
INDIVIDUALS OR BUSINESSES WHO BELIEVE THEY HAVE BEEN HARMED BY ANTICOMPETITIVE CONDUCT ARE ENCOURAGED TO COMPLETE THE FORM ABOVE ON THE RIGHT OR CONTACT JOHN KEHOE, ESQ., (215) 792-6676, EXT. 801, [email protected], [email protected], FOR A FREE, NO-OBLIGATION EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL LEGAL CLAIMS.
Jan 12, 2022 | Antitrust
Alleged Monopolization By John Deere Of The Market For Repair & Maintenance Services Of Its Agricultural Equipment
IF DURING THE PERIOD OF JANUARY 12, 2018 TO THE PRESENT, YOU PURCHASED REPAIR SERVICES FROM JOHN DEERE OR FROM ONE OF JOHN DEERE’S AFFILIATED, AUTHORIZED DEALERS OR TECHNICIANS, YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO CONTACT KEHOE LAW FIRM, P.C., [email protected], TO DISCUSS POTENTIAL LEGAL CLAIMS.
On January 12, 2022, a class action lawsuit was filed in United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, on behalf of those persons and entities who purchased repair services from Defendant Deere & Co. (d/b/a John Deere) and John Deere affiliated independent dealerships and technicians in the John Deere repair services market for John Deere agricultural equipment from January 12, 2018 to the present.
According to the complaint, John Deere has deliberately monopolized the market for repair and maintenance services of John Deere agricultural equipment with Engine Control Units by making crucial software and repair tools inaccessible to farmers and independent repair shops.
Deere’s network of highly-consolidated independent dealerships, allegedly, is not permitted through their agreements with John Deere to provide farmers or repair shops with access to the same software and repair tools of the dealerships.
As a result of shutting out farmers and independent repair shops from accessing the necessary resources for repairs, John Deere and the dealerships, according to the complaint, have cornered the John Deere repair services market in the United States for John Deere-branded agricultural equipment controlled by Engine Control Units (“ECU”) and have, allegedly, derived supra-competitive profits from the sale of repair and maintenance services.
To view a copy of the antitrust class action complaint, please click here.
IF DURING THE PERIOD OF JANUARY 12, 2018 TO THE PRESENT, YOU PURCHASED REPAIR SERVICES FROM JOHN DEERE OR FROM ONE OF JOHN DEERE’S AFFILIATED, AUTHORIZED DEALERS OR TECHNICIANS, YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO CONTACT KEHOE LAW FIRM, P.C. JOHN KEHOE, ESQ., (215) 792-6676, EXT. 801, [email protected], [email protected], FOR A FREE, NO-OBLIGATION EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL LEGAL CLAIMS.
Jan 10, 2022 | Antitrust
Antitrust Investigation On Behalf Of Students Who Attended Certain Educational Institutions To Determine Whether Those Academic Institutions Participated In A Price-Fixing Cartel
Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. is investigating potential antitrust claims on behalf of students who attended certain educational institutions to determine whether those institutions participated in a price-fixing cartel designed to reduce or eliminate financial aid as a source of competition, and that artificially inflated the net price of attendance for students receiving financial aid.
Class Action Lawsuit Filed
On January 9, 2022, a class action lawsuit was filed in United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, under Section 1 of the Sherman Act against Brown University (“Brown”), California Institute of Technology (“CalTech”), University of Chicago (“Chicago”), The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York (“Columbia”), Cornell University (“Cornell”), Trustees of Dartmouth College (“Dartmouth”), Duke University (“Duke”), Emory University (“Emory”), Georgetown University (“Georgetown”), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (“MIT”), Northwestern University (“Northwestern”), University of Notre Dame du Lac (“Notre Dame”), The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania (“Penn”), William Marsh Rice University (“Rice”), Vanderbilt University (“Vanderbilt”), and Yale University (“Yale”) (collectively, “Defendants”).
According to the complaint, the Defendants “. . . participated in a price-fixing cartel that is designed to reduce or eliminate financial aid as a locus of competition, and that in fact has artificially inflated the net price of attendance for students receiving financial aid.” [Emphasis added.]
To view a copy of the class action complaint, please click Financial Aid Class Action Complaint.
Please contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C., [email protected], for a free, no-obligation and confidential evaluation of potential legal claims if, with respect to the following educational institutions and during the periods indicated, you (a) enrolled in a full-time undergraduate program; (b) received need-based financial aid from the institution, and (c) paid to the institution tuition, room or board which was not fully covered by such financial aid:
- Brown—2004 through 2012
- CalTech—2019 to the present
- Chicago—2003 through 2014
- Columbia—2003 to the present
- Cornell—2003 to the present
- Duke—2003 to the present
- Dartmouth—2004 to the present
- Emory—2004 through 2012
- Georgetown—2003 to the present
- MIT—2003 to the present
- Northwestern—2003 to the present
- Notre Dame—2003 to the present
- Penn—2003 to the present
- Rice—2003 through 2009 & 2017 to the present
- Vanderbilt—2003 through 2019
- Yale—2003 through 2007 & 2018 to the present
Dec 17, 2021 | Antitrust, Blog
Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. Is Investigating Whether Engineers Or Other Skilled Employees Of Various Aerospace Companies Were Harmed By Anticompetitive Hiring Practices, Including Aerospace Engineering Companies Pratt & Whitney; QuEST Global Services-NA, Inc.; Belcan Engineering Group, LLC; Belcan Engineering Group Limited Partnership; Cyient Inc. (Formerly InfoTech); Parametric Solutions, Inc.; & Agilis Engineering, Inc.
If You Were Employed As An Engineer Or Other Skilled Employee At Any Time From 2011 To September 2019 At Pratt & Whitney; QuEST Global Services-NA, Inc.; Belcan Engineering Group, LLC; Cyient Inc. (Previously InfoTech); Parametric Solutions, Inc.; Agilis Engineering, Inc., Or One Of Their Wholly-Owned Subsidiaries, You Are Encouraged To Contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. , John Kehoe, Esq., (215) 792-6676, Ext. 801, [email protected], [email protected], To Discuss The Firm’s Aerospace Antitrust Investigation Or Potential Legal Claims.
Six Aerospace Executives and Managers Indicted For Leading Roles In Labor Market Conspiracy That Limited Workers’ Mobility And Career Prospects
On December 16, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury in Bridgeport, Connecticut, returned an indictment charging a former manager of a major aerospace engineering company and five executives of outsource engineering suppliers (“Suppliers”) for participating in a long-running conspiracy to restrict the hiring and recruiting of employees among their respective companies. The conspiracy affected thousands of engineers and other skilled workers in the aerospace industry who perform services in the design, manufacturing and servicing of aircraft components for both commercial and military purposes.
According to the one-count felony indictment unsealed today in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, six individuals — Mahesh Patel (“Patel”), of Connecticut; Robert Harvey, of South Carolina; Harpreet Wasan, of Connecticut; Steven Houghtaling, of Connecticut; Tom Edwards, of Connecticut; and Gary Prus, of Florida — conspired with unnamed others to allocate employees by agreeing not to hire or solicit employees from each other’s companies.
This indictment is the first in an ongoing investigation into labor market allocation in the aerospace engineering services industry. Patel, described as a leader of the conspiracy given his position and authority as the Suppliers’ common customer, was previously charged by complaint. He was arrested and appeared before a federal magistrate judge on the charge last week, and was released on a $100,000 appearance bond. The remaining defendants are expected to appear before federal district courts in different districts this week.
According to the indictment, the defendants and co-conspirators recognized the mutual financial benefit of the conspiracy — namely, reducing the rise in labor costs that would occur when aerospace workers were free to find new employment in a competitive environment. Patel and certain other co-conspirators explicitly appealed to this financial benefit when communicating with each other about the agreement.
The maximum penalty under the Sherman Act for a conspiracy to restrain trade is 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of $1 million. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime if either amount is greater than the statutory maximum fine.
Aerospace “No-Poach” Antitrust Class Action Lawsuit
On December 14, 2021, a class action complaint was filed in United States District Court for the District of Connecticut on behalf of engineers and other similarly skilled employees, based on alleged unlawful “no-poach” agreements among the aerospace engineering firms, which was intended to restrain competition in the relevant labor markets.
The Defendant aerospace-related companies named in the class action lawsuit (i.e., Pratt & Whitney; QuEST Global Services-NA, Inc.; Belcan Engineering Group, LLC; Belcan Engineering Group Limited Partnership; Cyient Inc.; Parametric Solutions, Inc.; Agilis Engineering, Inc.) are major competitors for engineering services, and they compete with one another to attract, hire, and retain engineers and other skilled employees.
According to the complaint, beginning at least as early as 2011 and continuing through at least 2019, senior executives and managers at the Defendant companies entered into a conspiracy not to solicit, recruit, hire without prior approval, or otherwise compete for employees, including engineers and other skilled employees.
Allegedly, the Defendant companies agreed to restrict competition for their employees’ services with the purpose and effect of fixing, suppressing, and stabilizing wages, salaries, and benefits and restraining competition in the market for their employees’ services. Further, the Defendants’ agreement to fix, suppress, and stabilize wages, salaries and benefits also, according to the complaint, restricted their employees’ mobility to access better job opportunities.
To view a copy of the antitrust class action complaint, please click Aerospace Engineering Class Action Complaint.
If You Were Employed As An Engineer Or Other Skilled Employee At Any Time From 2011 To September 2019 At Pratt & Whitney; QuEST Global Services-NA, Inc.; Belcan Engineering Group, LLC; Cyient Inc. (Previously InfoTech); Parametric Solutions, Inc.; Agilis Engineering, Inc., Or One Of Their Wholly-Owned Subsidiaries, You Are Encouraged To Contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. , John Kehoe, Esq., (215) 792-6676, Ext. 801, [email protected], [email protected], To Discuss The Antitrust Investigation Or Potential Legal Claims.
