Jury asked to award $2 billion in Tyson lawsuit

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A lawsuit accusing the nation's largest beef packer of price manipulation went to a jury Tuesday with a request that $2 billion in damages be awarded to cattlemen throughout the country.

The suit accuses Tyson Fresh Meats Inc. of using contracts with select ranchers to create a captive supply of cattle that enabled the company to drive prices down. The company maintained instead that supply and demand drive prices.

Concluding a monthlong trial, each side criticized the other's failure to produce concrete evidence and witnesses -- even though eight years have passed since six cattlemen filed the lawsuit on behalf of some 30,000 producers who sold cattle to Tyson, then known as IBP, between 1994 and 2002.

IBP merged with Arkansas-based Tyson Foods Inc. in 2001.