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ARTICLE · 09 JULY 2026

Egg Price-Fixing Settlements Signal DOJ's Intensifying Focus On Commodity Benchmark Manipulation

The three settlement agreements combine monetary relief and egg donations with significant behavioral commitments.

United StatesAntitrust/Competition Law

The three settlement agreements combine monetary relief and egg donations with significant behavioral commitments.

On June 29, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and 17 states filed a civil antitrust complaint and simultaneously entered proposed consent judgments with three major egg producers—Cal-Maine Foods, Versova and Hickman’s Egg Ranch—alleging that the defendants conspired to manipulate Urner Barry’s daily egg price quotations by coordinating bids on the Egg Clearinghouse Inc. (ECI) platform between June 2022 and March 2025. The case, United States v. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc., marks a significant enforcement action that illustrates how federal enforcers are approaching benchmark manipulation in concentrated commodity markets.

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