JBS Hires Compliance Chief Amid Antitrust Woes

JBS, the world’s largest meat supplier, has tapped one of its outside law firms for a new head of ethics and compliance as it looks to turn the page on antitrust woes that have cost the company and its affiliates nearly $300 million, reported Bloomberg Law.

Nora Feher, a complex litigation associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, joined JBS—the Brazilian company’s US. affiliate—as its ethics chief last month. Company spokeswoman Nikki Richardson said Feher reports to chief legal officer Kevin Arquit, who joined JBS last year.

Quinn Emanuel has been representing JBS in several antitrust actions related to price-fixing for different meat products. Fehrer is the latest in a string of ethics lawyers that the company and its affiliates have added in recent months.

Quinn Emanuel lawyers counseled the company on a $52.5 million settlement announced last week in a cartel case filed by beef wholesalers. 

Related: JBS Beef Cartel Case Reaches $53M Antitrust Settlemen

A year ago, Quinn Emanuel advised JBS as it secured a federal judge’s approval of a $24.5 million antitrust settlement with pork wholesalers. The firm also took the lead for JBS on another $20 million settlement with pork consumers and a nearly $13 million deal with restaurants and retailers agreed upon last November.

JBS has turned to Quinn Emanuel to handle nearly 5% of its U.S. federal litigation docket within the past five years, according to Bloomberg Law data.

Feher didn’t respond to a request for comment about her new position at JBS, whose U.S. headquarters is in Greeley, Colo. She spent the past seven years at Quinn Emanuel, working out of the firm’s offices in New York and Los Angeles, and was previously an executive assistant to Morgan Stanley’s chief legal officer.

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