The largest and second-largest US chicken suppliers — Tyson Foods and Pilgrim's Pride, respectively — agreed Monday to settle civil litigation with restaurants and other poultry purchasers who say the two companies conspired to boost chicken prices and thus violated national antitrust laws, according to press releases and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The same poultry purchasing companies levied the charges against both poultry processors since they bought the chicken directly from Tyson and Pilgrim's Pride. Those purchasers then distributed the meat to companies like Chick-fil-A and Kroger, according to Reuters.

The amount of Tyson's settlement with the purchasing companies was not disclosed in public documents, but Pilgrim's Pride, owned mainly by Brazil's JBS SA, said in a news release it would pay $75 million to settle the claims. Neither Tyson nor Pilgrim's Pride admitted any fault in the case in their agreements, which still must be approved by a U.S. judge in Chicago.

Pilgrim's Pride agreed in October to pay a $110.5 million fine to resolve a U.S. Department of Justice price-fixing investigation.

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