Published
October 5, 2026
Updated
October 19, 2026
Consumers who filed claims in the $203.35 million chicken price-fixing settlement were still waiting for payment in October 2026. The court granted final approval to the related Agri Stats settlement on September 1, 2026, but that settlement pays no cash, and no distribution date has been set for the consumer fund.
Chicken Settlement Payment Status: No Date Yet
Payments from the $203.35 million End-User Consumer fund in In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation, No. 1:16-cv-08637 (N.D. Ill.), had not gone out as of October 19, 2026, and no payment date has been announced. The official settlement website, OverchargedForChicken.com, says the time to file a claim has passed, that claims are being audited, and that class members should check back for details on the timing of distribution.The newest development is in a separate piece of the same case. At a telephonic hearing on September 1, 2026, Judge Thomas M. Durkin granted final approval to the consumer class's settlement with Agri Stats, the poultry-industry data company. That settlement changes how Agri Stats reports industry data; it does not put money into the consumer fund.
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Status
Payments Pending
claims are in audit · no distribution date announced as of October 19, 2026
Consumer Fund
$203,350,000
$181M first-round + $22.35M second-round settlements · about $133–134M left for claimants after fees and expenses
Claims Filed
10,417,964
as of June 4, 2025, before fraud screening · A.B. Data declaration, Dkt. 7766 · final count not yet filed
Agri Stats Settlement
Final Approval Granted
September 1, 2026 · conduct relief only, no cash · written ruling to follow
In Court Since
September 2016
more than 10 years · over 8,500 docket entries in the N.D. Illinois case
Can I Claim?
No — claims closed July 31, 2025
What Happened on September 1, 2026
The court's minute entry for the September 1 hearing states that the End-User Consumer Plaintiffs' motion for final approval of the Agri Stats settlement was granted for the reasons stated on the record, and that a written ruling affirming the approval will follow. Two days later, on September 3, 2026, the court signed a stipulated order dismissing Agri Stats from the case with prejudice.Agri Stats was the last defendant left in the consumer case. Plaintiffs alleged that the company's detailed industry reports helped chicken processors coordinate supply and prices; Agri Stats did not admit wrongdoing. The consumer class had lost its remaining claims against Agri Stats at summary judgment and appealed to the Seventh Circuit, and the two sides reached this settlement while that appeal was pending. The appeals court is keeping the appeal open until the district court issues its written ruling, and it has asked the parties for a joint status report by November 2, 2026, or within seven days of the ruling if that comes first.
Objections were limited. The approval brief reports that notice went by email to roughly 17 million potential class members and that six class members objected. One objector later withdrew their objections, and the court granted that withdrawal on September 9, 2026.
Why the Agri Stats Approval Does Not Add Money
The Agri Stats settlement is an injunctive-relief agreement. Under the terms described in the approval filings, Agri Stats agreed to stop certain broiler chicken reports, limit how it shares production and sales data, and maintain an antitrust compliance program. Class counsel did not request attorneys' fees for it, and the consumer plaintiffs' brief states that because the settlement provides conduct relief, there is no monetary relief to distribute and no claims process to run.The $203.35 million comes from earlier settlements with chicken processors. The court approved the first group — Tyson, Pilgrim's, Fieldale, Peco, George's and Mar-Jac — on December 20, 2021, and a second group of eleven processors, including Perdue, Sanderson, Koch, Mountaire and Wayne Farms, on June 30, 2025. The processors resolved the claims without admitting wrongdoing.
Why Chicken Settlement Payments Have Taken So Long
Two separate things have held up distribution. The first was the fight over class counsel's fees. Consumer class counsel's April 24, 2026 status report told the court that distribution had been stayed while a Seventh Circuit fee appeal and a renewed fee motion were resolved. In its July 2, 2025 opinion, the Seventh Circuit reduced the fee from the 33% originally awarded to 26.6%. On remand, the district court's May 21, 2026 order set the fee at $49,109,505.47 — 26.6% of a net settlement fund of $184,622,201 — plus $1,179,096.56 in interest, and calculated that the lower percentage saved the class $12,431,228.20. A September 22, 2026 order amended it again: after a class member objected to how the interest was calculated, class counsel conceded the error and accepted about $474,000 less in interest, and the court awarded the objector $2,000.The second is the claims audit. According to the same status report, A.B. Data, the claims administrator, is screening the more than 10 million submitted claims for fraud markers. The administrator first required documentation for any claim above $50 per month in chicken purchases, then raised that threshold to $300 per month after class members said records from 2012 to 2019 were hard to find. Claimants above $300 per month who cannot document their purchases are treated as having spent $300 per month for each claimed month.
The same report set a target schedule: close the audit period May 8, 2026, finalize claims May 22, 2026, and begin payments June 5, 2026. That schedule was not met, and no replacement schedule has been filed. A review of the court docket through October 14, 2026 shows no newer distribution report from the consumer class.
What the Claim Deficiency Notices Said
Many claimants learned about the audit through emails from A.B. Data titled "Notice of Claim Deficiency." The first round told claimants that their claims showed a higher-than-average volume or amount of chicken purchases and asked for documentation. A follow-up, an "UPDATED Notice of Claim Deficiency" dated April 25, 2026 and reviewed by OpenClassActions, told those claimants that the threshold for higher-than-average purchases had been raised to 84 packages or $300 per month.For claims that fell under the new threshold, the updated notice said the claim was no longer being audited on that issue and no further action was needed about the volume or amount of chicken purchased. It also said, in bold, that the update covered only the purchase-volume issue: any other deficiency listed in the original notice still had to be addressed, or the claim could be denied. Under the April 24 status report, the period for responding to deficiencies was set to close May 8, 2026. The notices did not include a payment date.
How Many People Filed Chicken Settlement Claims?
A.B. Data counted 10,417,964 claims as of June 4, 2025, according to a declaration by the administrator's client services director filed with the court on June 16, 2025 (Dkt. 7766). That was about eight weeks before the July 31, 2025 deadline, and the declaration said more claims were expected before the period closed. It is the most precise count in the public record: the April 24, 2026 status report cites the same declaration for its figure of "more than 10 million," and no final count after the deadline has been filed.The figure is a raw count of submissions, not of approved claims. The declaration states that the claims "must still be processed to identify fraudulent markers," and that A.B. Data was working with an outside service to review and validate claims, at an estimated cost of $450,000 to $900,000. That review is the audit still under way in October 2026.
The same declaration reports the reach of the 2025 notice campaign that produced those claims:
• Email notice sent to 28,353,987 unique addresses, of which 18,589,189 (66%) were delivered.
• More than 330 million digital ad impressions across the Google Display Network, Google search ads, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
• 33,744,344 hits on the settlement website as of June 4, 2025.
• An estimated 82.4% of the target audience reached.
• 22 exclusion requests in total, four of them in response to the 2025 settlements.
How Will Chicken Settlement Payments Be Sent?
The administrator plans to pay electronically. According to the June 2025 declaration, each eligible claimant will be sent an email at the address provided on the claim form, with digital options for receiving the money such as ACH bank transfer or a virtual debit card. A paper check by mail can be requested instead. Because the payment email goes to the address on the claim form, that address determines where the payment notice arrives.The declaration estimated A.B. Data's fees and expenses for the 2025 settlements at $892,780, separate from the outside fraud review, and stated that the administrator agreed to cap all administration costs for those settlements at $1,850,000. Administration costs come out of the fund before it is divided among claimants.
When Is Distribution Expected?
No court filing or settlement-website notice gives an estimated distribution date as of October 19, 2026, and OpenClassActions has not found any official estimate. The only timetable ever filed is the April 24, 2026 status report, which laid out the order of the remaining steps and the gaps between them:• Close of the deficiency and audit period (proposed for May 8, 2026).
• Claims processing complete and claims finalized — two weeks later (proposed for May 22, 2026).
• Payments to eligible claimants begin — two weeks after that (proposed for June 5, 2026).
Those dates passed without a distribution, but the sequence still describes what has to happen: under that plan, payments would begin about four weeks after the audit closes. The court's December 2021 approval order also said class counsel would ask the court for a distribution order setting out the plan of distribution and the number of claimants, so a court filing is likely to come before payments start. No filing has announced when the audit will close.
How Much Will Each Claimant Get?
No per-claim amount has been published. The May 21, 2026 fee order is the best public guide to the size of the pot: it puts the net settlement fund at $184,622,201 after $9,877,798.48 in litigation expenses and claims administration costs. Subtracting class counsel's fee, the interest on it and the objector awards in that order leaves roughly $133 million to $134 million for claimants, before any further administration costs. The money is divided pro rata: each payment depends on the approved purchase amount on that claim, the combined total of all approved claims after the audit, and what is deducted for attorneys' fees, litigation expenses and administration costs. Because the audit is still adjusting claims, the total of approved claims — the key number in the calculation — is not yet known.A February 2023 declaration from A.B. Data (Dkt. 6302-1) describes the payment design: eligible claimants receive a flat payment, with the option of an additional amount if their purchases exceed a set threshold and they provide documentation of those purchases. The flat amount is set from the total claimed purchases and the number of eligible claimants. The same declaration reported just over 2.2 million claims at that point; by the time the claim period closed on July 31, 2025, the count had passed 10 million. The court's 2021 approval order said class counsel would file a motion for a distribution order giving the plan of distribution, the number of claimants and the payment method — the filing expected to carry the approved-claim totals and payment amounts. As of October 2, 2026, it had not been filed.
Dividing the fund evenly across 10 million claims would produce a misleading figure, since claims vary widely by purchase amount and some will be reduced or rejected in the audit. The payment amount is typically disclosed when class counsel asks the court to authorize distribution or when the administrator announces payments.
How Long the Chicken Case Has Been in Court
In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on September 2, 2016, making it more than ten years old. The consumer plaintiffs' August 2026 approval brief describes a case with more than 8,000 docket entries, hundreds of depositions and millions of documents exchanged; the docket passed 8,570 entries in October 2026. The main steps for the consumer class:• September 2, 2016 — the first complaint in what became the consolidated litigation is filed in Chicago.
• December 20, 2021 — final approval of the first $181 million in settlements, with Tyson, Pilgrim's, Fieldale, Peco, George's and Mar-Jac.
• June 30, 2025 — final approval of $22.35 million in settlements with eleven more processors, bringing the consumer total to $203.35 million.
• July 2, 2025 — the Seventh Circuit cuts class counsel's fee from 33% to 26.6%.
• July 31, 2025 — the claim deadline; more than 10 million claims were filed.
• May 21, 2026 — the district court enters the fee award on remand.
• September 1, 2026 — final approval of the Agri Stats conduct settlement, resolving the last consumer claims.
Other Chicken Settlements Are Different Cases
Several chicken-related settlements share similar names. They cover different people and run on different schedules:• Consumer (End-User) settlements, $203.35 million — people who bought raw chicken at retail for their own use in the covered states. This is the fund described on this page. Details: $203.35M chicken price-fixing settlement.
• Direct purchaser settlements — businesses that bought chicken directly from processors. This class has already had an initial distribution; its counsel filed a July 30, 2026 status update on a second distribution of net settlement proceeds.
• Commercial and institutional indirect purchaser settlements — businesses and institutions that bought chicken through distributors. A separate class with its own counsel and administrator.
• Pilgrim's Pride broiler grower settlement, $100 million — farmers who raised chickens under contract, in a separate case over alleged suppression of grower pay. Details: Pilgrim's Pride grower settlement.
• Washington State chicken and tuna restitution, $40.6 million — a state attorney general recovery for Washington residents, paid by check starting in December 2023. Details: Washington chicken and tuna refunds.
A payment report about one of these does not mean the consumer fund is paying. The September 1 Agri Stats ruling is also separate from the U.S. Department of Justice's own case against Agri Stats.
What Happens Next
The next filings expected in the case are the court's written ruling on the Agri Stats approval and the joint status report to the Seventh Circuit due by November 2, 2026. For the cash fund, the next step is completion of the claims audit, followed by a distribution announcement on the official settlement website or a distribution filing on the docket.Claimants who filed before the July 31, 2025 deadline do not need to file again, and receiving the Agri Stats notice did not change any existing claim. Class action settlement payments do not require a fee, and the administrator does not charge claimants to release one. Background on how the case reached this point is in the April 2026 report on the Agri Stats preliminary approval.
Chicken Settlement Payment FAQ
When will the chicken settlement pay out?
No payment date has been announced as of October 19, 2026. The official settlement website, OverchargedForChicken.com, says the claims administrator is auditing claims and asks class members to check back for details on the timing of distribution. An April 2026 court filing proposed payments beginning June 5, 2026, and that date passed without a distribution.
Does the Agri Stats final approval mean payments are starting?
Not by itself. The Agri Stats settlement provides conduct relief only. The consumer plaintiffs' approval brief says it has no monetary relief to distribute and no claims process, so its approval does not add money to the $203.35 million fund or set a payment date for it.
When is chicken settlement distribution expected?
No official estimate has been published. The only filed timetable, from April 2026, planned for payments to begin about four weeks after the claims audit closes, and class counsel is expected to ask the court for a distribution order first. No filing has said when the audit will close.
How long has the chicken price-fixing case been in court?
Since September 2, 2016 — more than ten years. The consumer class reached $181 million in settlements approved in December 2021 and $22.35 million more approved in June 2025, for a total of $203.35 million.
How many chicken settlement claims were filed?
A.B. Data reported 10,417,964 claims as of June 4, 2025, in a declaration filed with the court on June 16, 2025, and expected more before the July 31, 2025 deadline. That is a raw count before fraud screening, not a count of approved claims. No final count after the deadline has been filed.
How will chicken settlement payments be sent?
Electronically, according to the claims administrator. Each eligible claimant is to receive an email at the address on the claim form with digital payment options such as ACH bank transfer or a virtual debit card, and a paper check by mail can be requested instead.
How much will each chicken settlement claimant receive?
No per-claim amount has been published. The fund is divided pro rata, so each payment depends on the approved purchase amount on the claim, the total of all approved claims, and the deductions for attorneys' fees, expenses and administration costs. The figure is expected to come with a future distribution filing or administrator announcement.
What did the updated chicken settlement Notice of Claim Deficiency mean?
A.B. Data sent an updated Notice of Claim Deficiency dated April 25, 2026 to claimants it had earlier flagged for higher-than-average chicken purchases. It said the threshold had been raised to 84 packages or $300 per month, that claims now under that threshold were no longer being audited on that issue, and that no further action was needed on purchase volume. It also warned that any other deficiency listed in the original notice still had to be fixed or the claim could be denied.
Can new claims still be filed?
Claims closed on July 31, 2025, the deadline for the $203.35 million consumer settlements. The Agri Stats settlement has no claim form because it pays no money.
Is this the same as the Pilgrim's Pride chicken grower settlement?
They are different cases. The $100 million Pilgrim's Pride settlement was brought on behalf of farmers who raised broiler chickens under contract, over alleged suppression of their pay. The $203.35 million settlement is for consumers who bought raw chicken at retail for their own use.
Sources
• In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation, No. 1:16-cv-08637 (N.D. Ill.), docket via CourtListener — Dkt. 8404 (fee order, May 21, 2026), Dkt. 8518 (memorandum supporting final approval of the Agri Stats settlement, Aug. 18, 2026), Dkt. 8533 (minute entry granting final approval, Sept. 1, 2026), Dkt. 8537 (stipulated dismissal of Agri Stats, Sept. 3, 2026), Dkt. 8544 (objection withdrawal granted, Sept. 9, 2026), Dkt. 8552 (Seventh Circuit order in No. 25-2298, Sept. 14, 2026), Dkt. 8503 (direct purchaser distribution status update, July 30, 2026), Dkt. 8568 (order amending the fee order, Sept. 22, 2026), Dkt. 6302-1 (A.B. Data declaration on claims processing, Feb. 9, 2023), Dkt. 5304 (final approval order, Dec. 20, 2021)• Dkt. 8359, Status Report Regarding Distribution for End-User Consumer Plaintiff Actions, filed Apr. 24, 2026
• Dkt. 7766, Declaration of Brian Devery (A.B. Data) in Support of Final Approval of Settlements, filed June 16, 2025
• Dkt. 7764, Memorandum in Support of End-User Consumer Plaintiffs' Motion for Final Approval of Class Action Settlements, filed June 16, 2025
• Andren v. End User Consumer Plaintiff Class, No. 24-2387 (7th Cir. July 2, 2025) — fee opinion
• Official settlement website — OverChargedForChicken.com
Court Filing: A.B. Data Claims Declaration (Dkt. 7766)
About This Page
OpenClassActions.com is a consumer news and information site, not a law firm, class counsel or a settlement administrator. This article is general information about the chicken price-fixing settlements. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. For official payment information, consult the settlement website.
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Status
Payments Pending — Claims in Audit
Case Title
In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation
Case Number
1:16-cv-08637
Court
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois
Date Filed
September 2, 2016
Official Website
OverChargedForChicken.com
