Category: JBS Monopoly Abuse Tracker

From a small butcher shop in Brazil, JBS has become the world’s largest meat company and a dominant force in America’s food industry. Its growth is the result of illegal activity.

JBS bribed 1,800 Brazilian officials in exchange for taxpayer-subsidized loans and other favors so it could take over the global meat market. Since then, the company was involved in bribing Brazilian meat inspectors allowing them to sell and export rotten and tainted meat around the world. In 2018, JBS admitted to cheating America’s farmers and ranchers by paying them less than the real value for their cattle at three separate beef processing plants, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses per farmer. JBS has racked up nearly 200 violations for workplace safety, employment discrimination, unfair wages, and environmental abuses since it began its takeover of the U.S. meat industry.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has purchased over 100 million dollars in meat products from JBS using taxpayer money meant to help American farmers weather the U.S.-China trade war, even though the trade war is directly fueling JBS’ growth. While China had suspended the purchase of U.S. agricultural products, it turned to JBS’ Brazilian operations to supply its demand. In August, JBS announced it is at its best moment in history to capture market opportunities as a result of increased demand from China.

OCM has called for JBS’s U.S. assets to be stripped from the company and split up, allowing for a more fair and just market.

U.S. Senators Rubio, Menedez and Stabenow, and Congresswoman DeLauro have called for the Trump Administration to launch an investigation into JBS. The Justice Department and the Securities Exchange Commission are investigating the parent company, J&F Investimentos, for potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The U.S. Government Accountability Office is now opening a review of the $28 billion bailout for farmers harmed by the trade war amid allegations that the money was mismanaged and allocated unfairly.