WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against data consulting company Agri Stats Inc. on Sept. 28 on the account of exchanging confidential information at the expense of the meat and poultry industry’s competition.

Filed with the District Court of Minnesota, the complaint alleges Agri Stats violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by collecting and distributing competitively sensitive information on price, costs like worker compensation and output among meat and poultry processors.

“This conduct harms customers, including grocery stores and American families,” the DOJ said.

According to the lawsuit, the processors engaged in the alleged malpractices with Agri Stats accounted for over 90% of US broiler chicken sales, 80% of US pork sales and 90% of US turkey sales. The DOJ said the processors would collectively have the power to manipulate their respective markets and prices if they exchanged information through Agri Stats.

The complaint dates Agri Stats’ conspiracy with processors back two decades and implies that the data company continues its “scheme” specifically in the chicken processing industry to this day.

“The Justice Department is committed to addressing anticompetitive information exchanges that result in consumers paying more for chicken, pork and turkey,” said Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s antitrust division. “This case is the latest effort by the Justice Department to protect American consumers, farmers and workers from anticompetitive practices in the agriculture industry.”

Agri Stats responded to the lawsuit, claiming its service has, since 1985, played a key role in growing the US economy by making it more efficient and enhancing innovation to ensure the expansion of protein production at the lowest price for consumers. The company referenced a previous antitrust investigation by the DOJ that resulted in an investigation that concluded no wrongdoing in 2012 and took no action to require Agri Stats to change its business practices.

“Agri Stats plans to vigorously defend the DOJ lawsuit just like the company defended the Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation class action lawsuit. The antitrust laws seek to foster competition that benefits consumers in the form of improved efficiency and lower prices—precisely the benefits that Agri Stats’ benchmarking services provide,” the company said.

Agri Stats has been one of the defendants listed on several previous antitrust cases, including a turkey price-fixing lawsuit filed in July and a pork price-fixing lawsuit that was consolidated in January.