Ellison accuses egg producers of colluding to keep prices high
Keith EllisonMinnesota attorney general
Ellison accuses the egg producers of price collusion and says corporations should compete for customers. He calls their conduct unlawful and unethical.
“Corporations should be competing against one another for your business, not colluding with one another to keep prices high,”
Official statement
Official statement
Original text
Where this statement fits
Did Cal-Maine and other egg producers manipulate egg-price benchmarks?
The Justice Department and 17 states allege that major egg producers coordinated bids to inflate Urner Barry price quotations. Cal-Maine denies wrongdoing and says its communications did not affect egg prices. The filed complaint and proposed settlement do not resolve the disputed facts by trial.
Source and context
Official statement
About this source
Ellison criticizes the alleged coordination among the named egg producers and describes the settlement. The companies' agreement to settle does not itself establish the allegations by trial.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Official statement
About this source
Cal-Maine denies unlawful conduct and price effects while agreeing to compliance measures, egg donations and payments to states, subject to approvals.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Original text
About this source
The proposed consent judgment states that the parties consent without a trial, adjudication or admission. It is not an entered finding of liability.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
Ellison's office says the settlement provides 53 million eggs nationwide, with roughly two million designated for Minnesota food banks and community organizations.
After the quotation
Ellison says he will continue fighting price manipulation and working to keep costs fair for Minnesotans.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Ellison criticizes the egg producers' alleged collusion, the conduct examined here. The statement expressly rejects price coordination, rather than defending the settlement as though that were the alleged conduct.
- Recorded on
- Published here
More from this case
Read the full caseAssefi says the egg producers stopped competing and were coordinating
“They reach a point where they no longer want to compete, and they’re coordinating to ensure outcomes that benefit all of them and then don’t benefit the consumer,”Read statement
Lincicome questions the economic importance of alleged egg-price coordination
“That doesn’t mean necessarily that there wasn’t illegal behavior going on, but not economically important behavior.”Read statement
Woodward says DOJ must step in when it sees commodity-market manipulation
“The manipulation of prices in the commodities market is not a novel concept anymore, and it is incumbent upon the department when it sees the manipulation of commodity markets to step in,”Read statement
Share or embed this statement
The embed keeps its attribution link to The Dispute Index. Credit the image to The Dispute Index and link to the statement page.
Cite this record
- Publisher
- The Dispute Index
- Title
- Ellison accuses egg producers of colluding to keep prices high
- First published
- Last updated
- Permalink
- https://disputeindex.com/events/6089-ellison-accuses-the-egg-producers-of-price-collusion
Last updated marks the most recent saved version of this published statement.
The Dispute Index. "Ellison accuses egg producers of colluding to keep prices high". First published: 2026-10-20. Last updated: 2026-10-20. https://disputeindex.com/events/6089-ellison-accuses-the-egg-producers-of-price-collusion