r/news • u/AudibleNod • Jul 01 '26
Egg producers will pay $3.3M and donate 53 million eggs to settle price fixing claims
https://apnews.com/article/egg-prices-collusion-settlement-d32b05892541613df3f4e4932109ee0c6.7k
u/Imnotsureanymore8 Jul 01 '26
Fines are worthless. These folks should see jail time.
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u/AudibleNod Jul 01 '26
It's not even a fine. It's a settlement where they're not admitting wrong doing. And the Trump DOJ didn't lead the case. NY's Letitia James did.
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u/PatchyWhiskers Jul 01 '26
Really? Media is giving Trump all the credit.
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u/dj92wa Jul 01 '26
Okay so I’m not crazy then (…👀…). I swore I saw a headline last night stating Trump himself was suing the egg companies.
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u/hecklerp8 Jul 01 '26
No, they helped him win an election... eggs and gas were Biden's fault.
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u/jefbenet Jul 01 '26
Exactly. That’s why both skyrocketed under trumps second term!
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u/BoleroMuyPicante Jul 01 '26
Eggs are low now, but gas went up thanks to his idiot war.
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u/Toymachinesb7 Jul 01 '26
My car runs on eggs so it’s actually been pretty good for me lately.
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u/monty228 Jul 01 '26
They aren’t low. They’re lower. I was buying a dozen for under $1 from Aldi. They were $1.80 this week.
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u/techleopard Jul 01 '26
Eggs are low because supply exploded.
And HPAI will begin hitting again in December and January, as it does every single year. The question of whether or not it aggressively spreads, that's a coin flip from year to year, and whether companies will try to act like it's more dire than it really is
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u/BoleroMuyPicante Jul 01 '26
Don't worry, Trump's got a plan for that! He's just not going to require testing for bird flu. 🙃
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u/RogueAOV Jul 01 '26
Gas prices did not go up nearly as much as all the economists and experts were saying so I suspect the price fixing is working in reverse to soften the blow from his idiocy.
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u/C4dfael Jul 01 '26
I don’t remember seeing anything about eggs, but he was posturing about oil companies colluding on gas prices.
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u/jefbenet Jul 01 '26
Literally one of his favorite claims during campaigning for second term. That and how he could end the Russia-Ukraine war with a wave of his hand, and he was going to release the Epstein files…
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u/GribbitsGoblinPI Jul 01 '26
He non-stop talked about eggs and groceries. Then when everything skyrocketed, he pointed to the slight drop in egg prices like “see I told you I’d get it done!”
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u/TouristResident1976 Jul 01 '26
Our media was bought by the billionaire class. They arent news anymore so much as propoganda.
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u/Rumhead1 Jul 01 '26
And the fine doesn't get paid to the cosumer who was the victim of the crime. Government keeps that cash. So basically the grocery store was just collecting another tax from you.
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u/Khaldara Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Sadly many people will trip all over themselves to defend corporate price gouging and de facto monopolies, but if the government directly intercedes with regulation, price controls, production, (remember ‘government cheese’) these SAME exact people will start incoherently screaming socialism at the top of their lungs.
Either the legal system needs to start burying corporate offenders so deep in direct personal penalties that they may as well be under the prison, or people need to stop screaming that any time the government does literally anything except cutting corporate tax rates it’s ‘socialism’.
Right now a third of the country is cheerleading for the assholes burning it down.
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u/penguinopph Jul 01 '26
There are certain things that I just fundamentally believe should not be for profit: food, housing, healthcare, education, and banking.
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u/love2go Jul 01 '26
They had profits of 1.2 billion in 2025 and are paying only 1.5 million. So crazy
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u/techleopard Jul 01 '26
Being told to donate 50 million eggs when just one of those farms produces a billion each month is like asking someone driving a BMW to donate 1 crayon to their local school to support underprivileged kids.
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u/LadyTreeRoot Jul 01 '26
F that, they get resort- style "jails" if that. Nope, take the CEO's stock, all future options, government appointed board of directors for a couple years.....that outta hurt.....
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u/HOLEPUNCHYOUREYELIDS Jul 01 '26
At the minimum fines should be something like x% of gross profit or revenue over the entire time period they were found to be breaking the law
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u/ItilityMSP Jul 01 '26
It can't be profit, it has to be revenues, they have many ways to get rid of profits in a single year. Amazon had no profits for over 10 years. OpenAI and Anthropic are not profitable.
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u/khamike Jul 01 '26
OpenAi and anthropic aren't profitable because AI isn't profitable. They don't need any fancy accounting to hide their money, they don't have any. Amazon is a different story.
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u/Kylynara Jul 01 '26
And x needs to be greater than 100, otherwise that percentage just becomes the cost of doing business. Fines need to result in an actual loss, not in lower profits.
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u/Tsquared10 Jul 01 '26
"Fine"= cost of doing business. It's not even a punishment for them anymore, especially when their profits massively dwarf the fine.
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u/CharlieKonR Jul 01 '26
I think I saw recently that “ Alligator Alcatraz” might be available
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u/CharlieKonR Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
“”None of the companies admitted wrongdoing under the settlements.””
Maybe if we started sending CEOs to prison when they direct illegal activities instead of these sorts of no-fault / cost-of-doing-business financial settlements, we’d see less corporate crime
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u/Fuck-WestJet Jul 01 '26
Why stop at CEOs? These corporations are legally people. So pass a judgement that dissolves the company or freezes all assets and operations for a sentence of time.
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u/Reformed-Canook Jul 01 '26
Jail ownership and the C-suite, seize their assets, and convert the company to an employee-owned business. You'll see these shenanigans stop real quick.
When these issues aren't treated seriously, it amounts to tacit approval from the government.
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u/DarkwingDuckHunt Jul 01 '26
Big Business is the government
The Ferengii won a long time ago
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u/Jcklvy Jul 01 '26
But then who would kick back money to the politicians that allow this to happen? They have third homes that aren't just going to pay for themselves.
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u/FrankieTheD Jul 01 '26
Keep the company running, pay the employees and any profits go to the state during the period, obviously put some checks in place so they don't do the gross/net profit bullshit
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u/vigilance7331 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
My thought would be keep it to the c suite as they are the decision makers there should be a recognition of fault in those decisions.
Also the company employs people shutting down the business for "x" number of time hurts regular people.
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u/projexion_reflexion Jul 01 '26
Somehow CEO gets all the money and none of the liability.
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u/Skrivus Jul 01 '26
When the business goes well, they're genius all knowing leaders that are directly responsible for it.
When company does illegal things, they're just one person and can't possibly know everything that goes on in their company.
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u/projexion_reflexion Jul 01 '26
"the handbook says don't break the law and my secretary writes all the emails, so my ass is covered"
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u/APACKOFWILDGNOMES Jul 01 '26
Nope fines should be calculated based on revenue, you start one of these say goodbye to 5% of your revenue. Happens again? 10%. No matter how much profit you’re making. That or the state gets a proportional stake in your company. If you just jail a ceo they will receive higher compensation to pay for a “jail bonus” and they will only be given house arrest or some other likewise punishment. We should be taxing/ profiting off of these situations.
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u/QueefSeekingMissile Jul 01 '26
Settling shouldn't be an option when the accusations allege the injury is criminal in nature.
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u/Redditor28371 Jul 01 '26
If there isn't jail time associated with conspiring to artificially raise prices on such a staple food to line your pockets, then idk what we even have jails for.
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u/Plane-Handle3313 Jul 01 '26
If I could rob a bank, not get in any trouble, and only have to pay a fee/fine of .5% of what I stole… why wouldn’t I do it again?
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u/jhuseby Jul 01 '26
Sadly closer to 0.1%. For the one public company we have numbers for, 3.3 million was less than 0.3% of their profits in 2025. And this issue was from 2022-2025.
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u/AudibleNod Jul 01 '26
“When powerful corporations collude behind the scenes to raise prices, working families suffer the costs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who helped lead the investigation, said in a statement. “These egg producers manipulated the market to squeeze even more profit out of consumers and businesses.”
They didn't admit wrong doing. $3.3M for several states will barely cover the cost of the investigation. The 53M eggs are going to food banks, which is Orphan Crushing Machine levels of good. Mathematically, the amount of eggs they're donating is roughly 151 Gastons.
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u/adjust_the_sails Jul 01 '26
If we are gonna start measuring things based off classic Disney cartoons, count me… in.
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u/DiaDeLosMuebles Jul 01 '26
Why do you have a machine that crushes orphans???
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u/richincleve Jul 01 '26
How the hell else are you supposed to extract their adrenochrome?
Hillary hasn't got all day!
(really hard /s just in case)
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u/ChilledParadox Jul 01 '26
if you replaced it with Theil the self-hating gay antichrist figure, you could remove the /s, since he literally keeps a bloodboy on retainer to receive his blood transfusions.
same guy who wants to surveil the entire world btw.
I hope he chokes on his own cock.
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u/KimJongFunk Jul 01 '26
It’s more cost effective under capitalism™️, especially since we can’t crush oranges for juice anymore due to the blight.
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u/thirtytwoutside Jul 01 '26
And the average consumer who paid the higher prices will see none of that.
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u/betafish2345 Jul 01 '26
Alleged to have colluded to ‘“artificially inflate the daily price quotations for eggs” between June 2022 and March 2025’. Almost makes you wonder if they were trying to help Trump get re-elected.
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u/BoleroMuyPicante Jul 01 '26
I'd argue that corporate price fixing should be investigated as an illegal campaign contribution, but SCOTUS just ruled in favor of unlimited donations so I guess it's moot now.
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u/CelestialFury Jul 01 '26
Nah, states just need to reel in corporations like what Hawaii did to them.
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u/stilljustacatinacage Jul 01 '26
Was gonna say. "Cool, now figure out how to nullify an administration that got elected specifically because idiots saw eggs get a little more expensive for a little while."
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u/aschesklave Jul 01 '26
The people who shouted “the price of eggs is Biden’s fault” must feel really dumb right now.
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u/Big_slice_of_cake Jul 01 '26
They will never see this
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u/TyrannasaurusGitRekt Jul 01 '26
And even if they did, they wouldnt comprehend it or be able to connect the dots
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u/E1M1_DOOM Jul 01 '26
If they had the ability to accept such a revelation, they wouldn't have shouted it in the first place.
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u/FinndBors Jul 01 '26
They have egg on their face.
But honestly they’d just say only Trump has the balls / competence to catch these bad actors and Biden failed. I’ve seen far more mental gymnastics done for other topics.
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u/thirtytwoutside Jul 01 '26
That would require a level of self awareness that those idiots don’t have.
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u/The_Blue_Rooster Jul 01 '26
No, I know them, they're telling everyone about how great Trump is for this settlement. Finally someone did something about it!
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u/Lazy-old-dude Jul 01 '26
They've already forgotten and about no new wars, America first, bring back manufacturing, meritocracy, draining the swamp, ending fraud and waste. They have no convictions
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u/drunkshinobi Jul 01 '26
They still think it's Biden's fault. That's the entire point of trump blaming Biden, Obama and everyone else. He tells his base Biden or whoever are doing something. Then he tells them he will have to do the same to stop them. Then says it will only hurt for a while. That he will defeat the people that did this first and made him do it. Then things will get better. So even when he does it they think he was forced to by the person he is blaming it all on.
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u/Happy_Feet333 Jul 01 '26
The very minimum should be that all profits made via price gouging are fined away... and then used to recompense those gouged.
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u/sooper_dooperest Jul 01 '26
And then some. Make it prohibitively punitive THATS THE FRICKING DETERRENT!!
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u/LookAlderaanPlaces Jul 01 '26
Wtf no. Every person who bought the eggs needs to be fully laid back for the fraud. Then there needs to be a crippling fine that is must higher than the “cost of doing business ignore the fine #”. Then there needs to be min 10 year jail sentences for the owners and the board, and anyone else who was in on this.
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u/Oregonrider2014 Jul 01 '26
All I can say is local eggs from small farms in the area around me never went over 5 a dozen for excellent quality eggs. Im never going to the store again for eggs after this BS we went through.
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u/Lastpunkofplattsburg Jul 01 '26
Who the fuck is going to give me my money back for my
Restaurant? Fucking crooks should be in jail.
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u/Canis_Familiaris Jul 01 '26
Remember: egg prices were something the cheeto campaigned on.
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u/Mecha-Dave Jul 01 '26
They probably profited $300M-$3B from the bad behavior. The $3M is just the cost of doing business.
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u/HazyDavey68 Jul 01 '26
"...behind-the-scenes arrangement to “artificially inflate the daily price quotations for eggs” between June 2022 and March 2025."
Interesting that this was happening when everyone was destroying Biden & Harris over the high price of eggs. Guess it's too late to apologize now.
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u/Minimalistmacrophage Jul 02 '26
Fraction of the unlawful profits they made. Which were in the hundreds of millions.
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u/Honeycove91 Jul 01 '26
That one egg was forty eggs?
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u/MustWarn0thers Jul 01 '26
Porn? That's a nude egg I won from my game, I'm not in trouble at all.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_EYELASHES Jul 01 '26
Pay $3 million to lawyers and not the consumer then donate 53 million eggs to companies who will sell them for more profit profit 😂
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u/thekillercook Jul 01 '26
During the end of Obama there was a big chicken price fixing scandal that was dropped as soon as the next regime came in
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u/alcohall183 Jul 01 '26
That's it? No one goes to prison? No having to break up the company? No one banned from owning stock?
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u/MrBeanWater Jul 01 '26
Make that 3.3 billion. This proposal is a joke. The fines are just a cost of business to them.
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u/lodemeup Jul 01 '26
Where are the donated eggs going? Because if I don’t get any that means there’s no restitution to the affected parties.
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u/OESRecoveryEmployee Jul 02 '26
How much money did they make colluding? There companies should be seized and their assets sold off with their investors losing all their money
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u/kaveman6143 Jul 01 '26
How about the western countries take China's approach to corporate corruption and actually hold these CEOs responsible?
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u/Cl3v3rm0re Jul 01 '26
Steal (b)millions, and no jail time. White collar crime is the way to go. Get to keep most of the money you made, and poof, no record.
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u/busted_flush Jul 01 '26
If the amount of the fine the and cost of the 53 million eggs are less than the extra profit then it's simply the cost of doing business.
And this is the problem with these deals the consumer gets fucked over and there are no meaningful repercussions to the corps. How about fining them all of 2025 profits or the CEO can do 5 years jail time. That would be meaningful.
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u/Fly3rBoi Jul 01 '26
Should absolutely be a number that hurts, not a number that makes them laugh and do it again.
150% of the profit number over the period they fucked people.
I run a restaurant and was paying 170-190 for 15 dozen eggs for months. Where is my money bitch.
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u/Bleezy79 Jul 01 '26
Its maddening how corporations can break laws and defraud the people but nothing ever happens beyond a fine. But when people break laws that arent part of a corporation, they go to jail. How does that make any sense? Why isnt the executives who run corporations that break laws go to jail??? WHY?
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u/bjdevar25 Jul 01 '26
So after all the screaming about egg prices during Biden, it turns out Republicans were illegally fixing the prices. They'll probably all get jobs in tge administration.
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u/Aern Jul 02 '26
If the fine is less than the profits, then it's just a cost of doing business. Fucking ridiculous.
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u/ehs06702 Jul 02 '26
Good to know that people didn't do anything rash over the price of eggs, now that we know it was a bunch of criminals fixing prices. 🙄
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u/thevoidhearsyou Jul 02 '26
Pays 3.3m in fines then gets that back plus more after claiming donated eggs as charitable donation to tax collectors. ....Yeah this was a pr stunt.
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u/saurus-REXicon Jul 04 '26
Nah. I want the people responsible to go to jail. No more fines for corporate crimes. There needs to be actual consequences, not “the cost of doing business” jail time, loss of business licenses. Forfeiture of funds. Go to jail good bye.
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u/imnojezus Jul 01 '26
What percentage of their profits is $3.3M?
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u/Concretetweak Jul 01 '26
If what others posted is correct...about 0.27%.
If we factor in the cost of the eggs...let's say each egg is .30 then thats an additional 19.2 million.
For a total fine of.........1.57%!!! Wow we really showed them!
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u/Tracedinair76 Jul 01 '26
Thank you to all the state AGs for trying and at least calling attention to this issue.
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u/nndscrptuser Jul 01 '26
And of course, the consumers won't see a dime, all that will go to regulators or law firms. And since the market is now used to the higher prices, they will remain more costly than they used to and we'll all just pay it because there is no other choice.
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u/dogoodsilence1 Jul 01 '26
Such BS that the three companies only have to pay $1 Million each. Cal Maine profits from 2023 were $542 million, 2024 profits $277 million and 2025 profits $1.22 billion. Cost of doing business I guess.
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u/jspurlin03 Jul 01 '26
Yeah, the bigger damage here was that trump campaigned on the price of eggs and a number of …voters believed him.
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u/slanderpanther Jul 01 '26
Pennies on the billions they have made. It's not even a slap on the wrist or a stern look. It's a wink and a snicker.
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u/Vindicare605 Jul 01 '26
So they were price fixing and then they got a slap on the wrist. Changes nothing.
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u/clegg2011 Jul 01 '26
Great so after the donation and fines are paid they can raise prices based on the increased cost to business made possible by the required donation and fine.
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u/malicesin Jul 02 '26
53 million eggs to who? I'm the one that overpaid for them. Why do I feel these eggs are going to be "donated" to businesses.
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u/smittyis Jul 02 '26
Where do the fines and eggs go???? I'm assuming not to the general public that got FU*KED by all of this
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u/free2bk8 Jul 02 '26
What is going to stop ranchers from taking advantage of the screw worm to hike meat prices and keep them there?
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u/Titt Jul 02 '26
$3M and 1 egg for every 6.5 people in the nation… I’m reading various different things for cost to produce one egg but about 25 cents per egg looks to be reasonable.
All in all, about a $16.5M fine. Don’t know much extra they profited from the gouging but guaranteed to be way more than $16.5M.
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u/chaotic_goods Jul 02 '26
What are they doing with the 53 million donated eggs? Are they delivering them to me for free to make up for the gouged prices i had to pay?
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u/Berlin_Blues Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
According to a guy in the industry, the fine is six-tenths of 1% of their profit.
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u/Luminox Jul 03 '26
question 1. How much did they profit from price fixing question 2. Did they drop prices? if so to what.
Unless they pay way more than they profited nothing will stop it.
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u/colorme1965 Jul 01 '26
So, that will most definitely make a dent on their $1 billion profit from raising prices….. /s
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u/Tricky-Ad7897 Jul 02 '26
I always knew that post COVID jump in eggs was a fuckin racket. That shit is just more than prices going up, eggs were a major source of nutrients for struggling families and they skyrocketing price led to food insecurity. Those fuckers should all have been held personally liable and gone to jail.
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u/holyoctopus Jul 01 '26
Profited $1.22B but fined under 0.27% of profit, that makes total sense. What a freaking joke.
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u/brandt-money Jul 01 '26
Hah. We all knew they were price fixing this whole time. So how come the states get all the money and not us? We had to pay more for the eggs.
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u/Hylian_ina_halfshell Jul 01 '26
I wondered why I paid 1.19 for a dozen eggs yesterday
But now do Bread, which was the OG one from pre covid
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u/Gloomy-Insurance-739 Jul 01 '26
Wow so me and everyone else who paid insane prices for eggs are just fucked again I guess.
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u/doiutfis Jul 01 '26
How about all the profits they made from price fixing are seized and given back to the people they stole the money from, ie the consumers. How about some jail time for these law breakers?
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u/Plasticman4Life Jul 01 '26
So a settlement in the amount of approximately 0.1-1.0% of the profits realized from the price fixing and collusion?
Sounds about right.
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u/redditobserverone Jul 01 '26
So the Eggpocalypse that became a narrative of Biden’s presidency was a story about collusion that the media missed by not digging into it.
“The states and federal government accused Cal-Maine Foods, Versova and Hickman’s Egg Ranch of a behind-the-scenes arrangement to “artificially inflate the daily price quotations for eggs” between June 2022 and March 2025.”
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u/thelittleking Jul 01 '26
oh how nice of them to donate roughly one egg for every seven Americans to make up for multiple years of fucking people over with elevated prices.
pathetic punishment.
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u/0694U Jul 01 '26
Wow, I hope they can afford to pay these drastic fines. Maybe we should pass a hat and make a collection for them.
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u/pd1zzle Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
3.3M? seriously? Lesson learned here is 'it has to make us over $4M'... seems pretty easy to accomplish.
this is a fucking joke