The Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) and a bipartisan group of six state attorneys general announced last week a proposed settlement that provides important guidance on how federal and state antitrust enforcers evaluate information exchanges. In many cases, information exchanges are alleged to be evidence of an underlying illegal agreement, such as to fix prices. But the focus in United States et al. v. Agri Stats, Inc. is on alleged anticompetitive effects from exchanges of information themselves, which has been a rare theory for the agencies to pursue. As such, the proposed settlement (which the court must approve) provides important guidance for businesses and likely provides insight into how the federal agencies will treat information exchanges in expected forthcoming guidance regarding collaborations between competitors.
The filing of Agri Stats and the proposed settlement continues the scrutiny from both antitrust agencies of information exchanges among competitors in recent years. In 2022, the DOJ filed a suit (and a simultaneous settlement) to stop the exchange of wage- and employment-related information.1 In 2023, both the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission withdrew decades-old Antitrust Enforcement Policy Statements in the Health Care Area, which had provided guidance and articulated “safety zones” for information sharing among competitors.2 And in late 2024, the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission withdrew their Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors (Collaboration Guidelines), which had been in place since 2000 and also included guidance on exchanges of competitively sensitive information.3 Officials from both agencies, moreover, have publicly discussed a focus on information exchange enforcement.
The Agri Stats Case
In late 2023, the DOJ and a bipartisan group of six state attorneys general sued Agri Stats, a data analytics and industry consultancy firm that counted some of the country’s largest protein processors (i.e., meat processors) as its major clients. The enforcers alleged that Agri Stats obtained granular data—sometimes as frequently as weekly—about prices, output, and costs.4 According to the complaint, Agri Stats then “loosely anonymized” the data and redistributed it in reports to its clients “to facilitate comparisons.”5 They further alleged that “Agri Stats enables and encourages processors to increase prices and restrict output to boost profits industry-wide” and, notably, that there were few if any examples of Agri Stats’ clients using the information to lower prices to gain market share.6
In its motion for summary judgment, which the district court denied,7 Agri Stats argued that the enforcers failed to meet the requirements for a claim under the rule of reason because there was no empirical evidence of market-wide price increases or output reductions.8 Agri Stats also argued that its reports do not disclose actual prices or production volumes and drew comparisons between its reports and industry-wide benchmarking studies that it argued can help improve efficiency, reduce cost, and enhance competition.9
The case was set for trial in early May. Had it gone to trial, it would have been the first federal antitrust enforcement trial focused on information exchanges in decades.
Settlement Highlights
The proposed consent decree, which is subject to district court approval after a public comment period, includes several limits on Agri Stats’ conveying of information, including among other things:
- Prohibition on Price Reporting. The consent decree bans Agri Stats from offering its “Sales Report Books,” which reported nonpublic information on prices charged or paid for chicken, pork, and turkey products.10
- Anonymization and Aggregation Requirements. For other reports, Agri Stats is prohibited from disclosing the identity or number of meat processors from which reported data is derived. Agri Stats is also barred from ranking individual meat processors on any reported metric and must report many industry-wide metrics at no more specificity than the quartile level.11
- Recency Limitations. Information in reports that Agri Stats is still permitted to provide must be at least 45 days old on average (and in some instances, even older).12
- Market Transparency. The proposed settlement also requires Agri Stats to make all of its reports available to any interested buyer—including purchasers of protein products—on like terms as those provided to meat processors.13 (Agri Stats has allegedly restricted availability to meat processors.)
The proposed settlement allows Agri Stats to continue to provide reports reflecting non-sales data, such as industry participant costs and output, as it has been doing.14 Its subsidiary, Express Markets, Inc. (EMI), may continue to offer its existing forecasting and pricing analyses for the protein industry,15 which the complaint described as “more aggregated”16 than the Agri Stats Sales Report Books and which were already typically made available to non-meat processor buyers.
If approved, the consent decree will remain in force for up to 10 years and require appointment of a compliance monitor, who may serve for seven years.
Immediate Implications
The consent decree appears to signal two priorities for enforcers evaluating information exchanges:
First, the settlement seems focused on limiting firms’ ability to use competitors’ data for real-time price and output decisions. Agri Stats’ Sales Report Books contained recent data on individual competitors’ pricing and enabled processors to see how their pricing ranked and compared with individual competitors’. The proposed settlement’s focus on eliminating these reports, while allowing EMI to continue to offer its “more aggregated”17 pricing reports, suggests that enforcers may be willing to accept some degree of competitive benchmarking facilitated through information exchanges, so long as that data is sufficiently aggregated.
The proposed settlement’s requirement that output and cost-related reports use only more-historical data reinforces the focus on restricting use of competitors’ data for short-term price and output decisions. For example, while in general data contained in these reports must be on average 45 days old, any data “reflect[ing] production decisions”—i.e., a meat processor’s decision to set output at a specific level—must pertain to a production decision that was made at least 90 days before.18 That stricter restriction seems to reflect concerns that competitors could use their rivals’ production decision data to set their own output levels in a way that could reduce competitive intensity.
This focus on real-time pricing and output decisions aligns with the terms of another settlement the DOJ recently reached in United States et al. v. RealPage, Inc.19 RealPage offers landlords a software tool that collects lease pricing information and uses an algorithm to recommend leasing rates to its subscribers. The DOJ alleged that this tool reduced competition in rental housing markets, and in November 2025 reached a settlement that barred RealPage from using competitor pricing information in the algorithm at the time it makes pricing recommendations. The Agri Stats proposed settlement signifies this remains a concern, even in more traditional, non-algorithmic benchmarking reports.
Second, the proposed Agri Stats settlement appears focused on reducing informational asymmetries that may emerge from competitor information exchanges. The DOJ and state plaintiffs had alleged that Agri Stats’ so-called “give-to-get policy” governing access to its reports contributed to the alleged competitive harm.20 The requirement that Agri Stats make its reports available to any interested parties—including buyers of meat products—signals that enforcers may see equal access to competitively sensitive information on both the buyer and seller sides of transactions as important to reducing the potential for anticompetitive effects. The DOJ’s press release announcing the settlement noted that EMI’s reports, which may continue under the proposed settlement’s terms, “were not the focus of the case” in part because they were “provided to all interested parties, not only meat producers.”21
The DOJ has not yet filed its Competitive Impact Statement, which will describe its view on how the proposed final judgment addresses the harm alleged in the complaint. That statement may provide additional insight regarding the DOJ’s views.
A Longer-Term View
This settlement comes during ongoing uncertainty regarding federal antitrust enforcers’ views on information exchanges following their withdrawal of long-standing guidance.
In February 2026, the DOJ and FTC announced a joint public inquiry and request for comments on revised Collaboration Guidelines in an effort to “provide businesses with the predictability and confidence they need to collaborate and grow while avoiding anticompetitive conduct that risks raising prices or stifling innovation.”22 While the DOJ’s settlements with Agri Stats and RealPage provide some insight into how federal enforcers currently view information exchanges, neither settlement provides the sort of generalized guidance found in earlier guidance documents and that may be reflected in the forthcoming Collaboration Guidelines.
Further, the Agri Stats proposed settlement is an important reminder that the DOJ and FTC and state antitrust enforcers are intensely focused on information exchanges among competitors, an area that had not received particular attention for several decades. Businesses are well-advised to ensure that their antitrust compliance and training programs cover information sharing, standing alone—not just agreements with competitors—and that they carefully evaluate all existing and proposed information sharing with competitors (including through third-party providers) for antitrust risk. It will be important, moreover, to consider the lessons from Agri Stats (and RealPage) while we await new Collaboration Guidelines from the federal antitrust agencies.
WilmerHale’s antitrust litigation and counseling practices have significant experience in these areas and would be glad to be of assistance.
Note: Ryan Danks participated in the Agri Stats litigation while at the DOJ. The views expressed herein are his own, and his contributions to this alert are based solely on public information.
