JBS Beef & Pork Wage-Fixing Settlement: $202.8M

At a glance

Status

Open

Defendant

JBS USA Food Company, Tyson, Cargill, and other beef/pork processors

Settlement fund

$202,800,000

Claim deadline

March 26, 2027

No-proof cash option

Yes — Pro rata cash. Noticed Class Members need not file a form (should still update contact/employment/earnings info); Class Members who did not receive notice must submit a Participation Form. No documentation/proof of employment required beyond the form itself.

Estimated payout

Pro rata cash. Noticed Class Members need not file a form (should still update contact/employment/earnings info); Class Members who did not receive notice must submit a Participation Form. No documentation/proof of employment required beyond the form itself.

Administrator

A.B. Data, Ltd.

Official site

www.beefporkwages.com

Court

United States District Court, District of Colorado

Case number

Brown v. JBS USA Food Company, et al., No. 1:22-cv-02946

Last verified September 9, 2026

Key dates

Milestone	Date	What it means
Claim deadline	March 26, 2027	Last day to file for a payment
Opt-out (exclusion) deadline	September 29, 2026	Last day to leave the settlement and keep the right to sue
Objection deadline	September 29, 2026	Last day to object to the terms
Final approval hearing	November 13, 2026	When the judge decides whether to approve the settlement
Expected payout	Not yet scheduled	Payments are not sent until after final approval and any appeals

Where to file

JBS USA Beef & Pork Processing Wage-Fixing Antitrust Settlement (Brown v. JBS) is administered by A.B. Data, Ltd.. The only place to file is the official settlement website:

File at the official site

www.beefporkwages.com

Filing is free. No legitimate settlement charges a fee to file a claim.

You cannot file on RecordingLaw.com. We are an independent publisher, not the settlement administrator, and we are not affiliated with any court, agency, or defendant.

The JBS USA Beef and Pork Processing Wage-Fixing Antitrust Settlement, known in court as Brown v. JBS, is an open case, not a data breach. As of September 9, 2026, the combined settlement fund stands at $202.8 million after two more meat processors agreed to settle since the case's original notice went out, and the administrator has pushed some filing deadlines back as a result. If you worked at a U.S. beef or pork processing plant any time between 2000 and early 2024, here is what the case actually alleges, where the money stands right now, and how the claims process works.

What the lawsuit is about

This is an antitrust case, not a data breach. No personal data or customer records are alleged to have been exposed. Instead, workers who processed beef and pork at U.S. meatpacking plants accuse a group of major processors, including JBS USA Food Company, Tyson, and Cargill, of conspiring to hold down the pay of plant employees industry-wide over more than two decades.

The class covers people who worked at a U.S. beef or pork processing plant between January 1, 2000 and February 27, 2024. The case is pending as Brown v. JBS in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, case number 1:22-cv-02946.

This fund has built up from a series of separate agreements over time, not one lump settlement. Tyson agreed to pay $72.25 million, JBS $55 million, and Cargill $29.75 million, with roughly ten other processors adding the rest of an earlier $200.2 million total; two more defendants have since settled, bringing the combined fund to today's $202.8 million. None of the settling companies has admitted wrongdoing.

Where this stands right now, and why

As of September 9, 2026, this is an actively moving settlement. New defendants have continued to join after the case's earlier notices went out, which is why the fund total and some filing dates have shifted. Double-check any dollar figure or deadline you see for this case against the official site before you rely on it.

A final approval hearing, where a judge decides whether to approve the settlement terms as fair, is scheduled for November 13, 2026. No payout date has been set yet. That is normal at this stage; settlement funds are typically not distributed until after final approval, and often not until after any appeal period has run, so there is no confirmed date yet for when money would actually go out.

The exclusion, or opt-out, deadline is September 29, 2026. Opting out means leaving the class entirely: you keep your own right to sue the settling defendants separately, but you get nothing from this fund. That is different from objecting, which means staying in the class while telling the judge you think the deal's terms are unfair. The objection deadline is also September 29, 2026, the same date as the opt-out deadline; check the official Notice and FAQ page for the current procedure ahead of the November hearing.

Who's actually in the class

The class is defined by where and when you worked, not by any specific type of harm you can document. You may be eligible if you were employed at a U.S. beef or pork processing plant at any point between January 1, 2000 and February 27, 2024, regardless of which company operated the plant, as long as that company is among the settling defendants or is otherwise covered by the case. Plant workers, not corporate or administrative staff at unrelated facilities, are the intended class.

Because that class period runs nearly a quarter century across many plants, the number of eligible workers is likely very large.

How much you can realistically expect

There is no set payout amount. The $202.8 million fund is divided pro rata among everyone who has a valid claim in the class, meaning the actual dollar figure per worker depends on how many people are ultimately included, and what the court approves for attorneys' fees, administrative costs, and any service awards to the named plaintiffs. The settlement record reviewed for this page does not state a minimum or typical per-worker payment.

Given how large the class period is, most individual payments are likely to be modest relative to the size of the headline fund. Do not treat any specific number you see elsewhere, including on aggregator or settlement-tracking sites, as a promise.

What proof you need to file

This settlement does not require documentation of lost wages or hours worked beyond identifying yourself as someone who worked at a covered plant during the class period. If you already received a notice with an estimated compensation amount, you generally do not need to file a separate claim form at all, though you should still log in and confirm or update your contact, employment, and earnings information so the administrator can find and pay you correctly. If you never received a notice, you need to submit a Participation Form; no other documentation of your employment is required beyond the form itself.

How filing works

Filing and account updates happen only through the official settlement site, administered by A.B. Data, Ltd.; the link renders separately on this page. The official site's Important Dates panel gives March 26, 2027 as the end of the participation period, and its FAQ repeats that date. Its standalone Participation Form page, however, says forms must be submitted online or postmarked on or before February 4, 2027, and the site has separately listed October 7, 2026 as a target for online filing and information updates. The site contradicts itself, so treat the earliest date as the safe one and confirm with A.B. Data before relying on any of them. If you are not sure which path applies to you, the official site can look up whether you already have a notice on file.

If you're not sure this applies to you, or you're checking back later

This case did not involve an alleged exposure of personal data, so the credit-freeze and identity-monitoring steps that make sense after an actual data breach are not relevant here. If you worked at a covered plant and are unsure whether you were sent a notice, the official site is the only place to check, not a third-party settlement-tracking site claiming to do it for you.

For other open, currently verified settlements, including actual data breach cases with their own separate claim windows, see RecordingLaw's data breach and privacy settlement tracker.