Consolidating 27 cases involving 146 parties, Minnesota’s District Court Judge John Tunheim wrote the order and opinion to merge all related pork antitrust cases pending in the District of Minnesota into In re Pork Antitrust Litigation, following the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) issued conditional transfer order.
“The Court will consolidate the cases for all future pretrial proceedings into a single multidistrict litigation (MDL) because the Court concludes that consolidation will best promote efficiency, prevent confusion and unnecessary complication, and prevent duplicative or conflicting decisions,” Tunheim’s order explains.
Consolidation will also allow the parties and the Court to generally file updates and changes in a centralized location, without the need to make minor changes to satisfy different case numbers, as well as improve the following of developments using one unified docket, the order adds.
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