CASE BACKGROUND
The Nutrien defendants; Mosaic defendants; CF Industries Holdings, Inc.; Koch defendants; Yara defendants; and Cantopex Ltd. produce, manufacture, supply, and sell NPK Fertilizer throughout the United States. Together, these manufacturing defendants control approximately 82% of the nitrogen market, 90 to 95% of the potash market, and 91% of the phosphate market in the United States.
Beginning on or around January 1, 2020, defendants allegedly entered into an agreement, combination, or conspiracy to limit the supply and fix, raise, maintain, or stabilize prices of NPK Fertilizer sold in the United States at supra-competitive levels. As a result, plaintiff IIHAB Partnership and a proposed class have paid artificially inflated prices for NPK Fertilizer for over six years and have suffered injuries in violation of federal antitrust laws.
Defendants’ alleged conspiracy has enabled the manufacturer defendants to increase their profit margins exponentially, while forcing U.S. farmers to pay inflated prices even when market conditions do not predict or deliver net crop income. The manufacturer defendants maintain elevated prices without concern that their competitors will try to steal their market share. They also have no concern for potential new market entrants because high barriers to entry prevent new competitors from entering the market.
Historically, the agriculture industry has been marked by boom-and-bust cycles where the cost of crop inputs, including fertilizers, would fluctuate in response to market demand, weather patterns, or supply chain disruptions impacting the supply of harvestable crops and ultimately impacting the revenue generated by independent U.S. farmers. But that market pattern changed markedly in 2008 when fertilizer prices steadily rose, spiking in times of global volatility but failing to drop after the markets settled down. Prices also remained high regardless of the manufacturer defendants’ costs. While net farm income decreased nearly 30% from 2022 to 2024, the manufacturer defendants’ profits grew by nearly 300% and NPK Fertilizer prices increased by approximately 100%.
On October 28, 2025, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee conducted a hearing on the issue entitled “Pressure Cooker: Competition Issues in the Seed & Fertilizer Industries.” Testifying farmers and researchers cited massive consolidation in the fertilizer and seed industries as the reason why agricultural input costs, including NPK Fertilizers, have reached an unsustainable level.
On March 4, 2026, Bloomberg reported that the Department of Justice has begun investigating the U.S. fertilizer market for possible price fixing, including multiple manufacturer defendants’ practices.
Through this alleged wrongful conduct, defendants have reduced or eliminated the historical boom-and-bust cycle of the agriculture industry. And they have propped up fertilizer prices during periods of rapidly falling input costs by, among other means, coordinating pricing among manufacturers.
