Agriculture Giants
your username
4 hours ago
Rabobank, a Dutch financial company, argued on Monday that the Northern District of Illinois should dismiss claims against it in the consolidated lawsuit regarding anti-competitive activities in the broiler chicken industry. The defendant claimed that the Direct Action Plaintiffs’ allegations in their Amended Consolidated Complaint were not sufficient and that they did not contest Rabobank’s arguments in its opening memorandum.
In its reply, the defendant said the plaintiffs agreed that to keep the claims from being dismissed “they must allege that Rabobank knew of the alleged output-reduction conspiracy, was aware of its scope, agreed to play a defined role in it, and furthered the conspiracy in a meaningful way.” Instead of addressing this, however, Rabobank said the “plaintiffs attack straw men and rely on evidence outside their complaint to argue that they plausibly have alleged Rabobank joined a massive, nationwide, decade-long conspiracy to reduce output in a market in which Rabobank never participated with numerous parties with which Rabobank had no relationship.”