NEW YORK — Deere & Co. has agreed to pay $99 million as part of a settlement that would resolve a class action lawsuit accusing the farm equipment giant of monopolizing repair services.<\/p>\n
The Moline, Illinois-based manufacturer, which does business under the John Deere brand, has faced a handful of \u201cright to repair\u201d complaints<\/a> over the years. The deal announced Monday \u2014 which still needs final approval from the court \u2014 would settle a 2022 lawsuit that accused the company of withholding repair software and conspiring with authorized dealers to force farmers to use their services for repairs, when they could otherwise fix tractors and other equipment themselves or use independent alternatives.<\/p>\n The plaintiffs alleged that meant Deere and its dealers could charge higher, \u201csupracompetitive\u201d prices and reap benefits from an \u201cunlawfully restrained\u201d market, per court filings.<\/p>\n Deere has continued to deny any wrongdoing, and maintained Monday it’s dedicated to supporting customers’ ability and access needed to repair their equipment. But the company agreed to the settlement \u201cto move forward and remain focused on what matters most \u2014 serving our customers,\u201d Denver Caldwell, vice president of aftermarket and customer support, said in a statement.<\/p>\n Under the proposed agreement, filed in federal court in Illinois, the $99 million would go into a settlement fund for class members who paid Deere or its authorized dealers for large agriculture equipment repairs between Jan. 10, 2018 until the date of the deal’s preliminary approval.<\/p>\n The company also agreed to additional injunctive relief, aimed at strengthening the availability of repair resources and things like diagnostic checks.<\/p>\n Beyond this case, Deere still faces separate litigation from the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC sued Deere<\/a> in January 2025, at the end of the Biden administration, accusing the company of \u201cunfair practices that have driven up equipment repair costs for farmers while also depriving farmers of the ability to make timely repairs.\u201d Deere at the time said the claims were baseless.<\/p>\n \u201cRight to repair\u201d calls have piled up across sectors over the years, particularly as technology found its way<\/a> into more and more products workers and consumers rely on. Beyond farm equipment, makers of goods like smartphones and video game consoles<\/a> have also been accused of withholding tools or creating software-based locks that prevent even simple updates, unless they\u2019re done by a shop authorized by the company \u2014 in turn, hampering independent repair businesses<\/a>. Under public pressure, lawmakers in several states<\/a> have tried to combat this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Deere & Co. has agreed to pay $99 million as part of a settlement that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[251473,2342,966,28,2302,3130,2221,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-570271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-251473","9":"tag-agriculture","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-lawsuits","14":"tag-legal-proceedings","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}