Attorney General Ellison scores win for farmers’ right to repair in settlement with John Deere

Deere to provide farmers and independent repair providers with current and future repair resources for 10 years — including resources it only provided until now to authorized dealers, increasing Deere’s profits and driving up farmers’ and consumers’ costs

Settlement resolves AG Ellison’s January 2025 antitrust lawsuit with four states and FTC against Deere

July 8, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced an important win for farmers’ right to repair today: a settlement he reached with John Deere that resolves his January 2025 antitrust lawsuit against Deere & Company over its use of unfair practices that have driven up equipment repair costs for farmers while also depriving farmers of the ability to make timely repairs on critical farming equipment, including tractors. The settlement requires Deere to make its current and future repair resources — most of which until now, it has provided only to authorized Deere dealers — available to farmers and independent repair providers for a period of 10 years.

“For far too long, illegal antitrust practices have been stifling our economy and Americans’ prosperity while making multinational corporations and billionaires much, much richer. John Deere’s illegal practice of preventing farmers from repairing their own equipment or choice in who repairs their equipment has been driving up farmers’ costs, hurting independent small businesses, and making it harder for Minnesotans to afford their lives in rural communities and every part of our state,” Attorney General Ellison said. “This settlement is a win for the right to repair that farmers and small, independent businesses have fought so hard for and richly deserve. I took on this investigation and lawsuit from the very beginning because unrigging our economy so the rest of us can afford our lives has been and will continue to be my top priority. There’s more to do and we’re going to do it.”

Attorney General Ellison’s 2025 complaint alleged that for decades, Deere’s unlawful practices throttled the ability of farmers and independent repair providers to repair Deere equipment, forcing farmers to instead rely on Deere’s network of authorized dealers for necessary repairs, who use a software tool to diagnose and repair problems that Deere made available only to authorized dealers. This unfair steering practice boosted Deere’s multi-billion-dollar profits on agricultural equipment and parts, growing its repair-parts business while burdening farmers with higher repair costs.

Today’s settlement of the lawsuit, which Attorney General Ellison reached with the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, who are co-plaintiffs on the lawsuit, requires Deere to:

• Make repair resources available to farmers and independent repair providers that are equivalent to those Deere has made available only to authorized Deere dealers. This includes capabilities that correspond to the current and planned capabilities of Deere’s existing “PRO Service” product, as well as any other functions and capabilities reasonably necessary to maintain, diagnose, and repair Deere agricultural equipment. These functionalities include:
• reading, clearing and resetting electronic fault codes;
• reprogramming of electronic components, including pairing newly installed electronic parts with equipment;
• restarting a machine following an emissions-related shutdown;
• viewing and searching technical manuals, troubleshooting solutions, and other guidance and information useful for equipment diagnosis, maintenance, repair or upgrades.
• Make future repair resources available to farmers and Independent Repair Professionals (“IRPs”) once Deere grants access to more than 50 percent of Deere’s authorized dealer locations. Future repair resources are broadly defined to include successors and updates to PRO Service, as well as any future tool that performs any of the same functions or is reasonably necessary for equipment maintenance, diagnosis, or repair.
• Instruct its authorized dealers to promote and support current and future repair resources and not to discriminate or retaliate against any farmers or IRPs who use or purchase them.
• Provide notices to Deere’s farmer and IRP customers, its authorized dealers, and the public about settlement and the availability of Deere’s repair resources, as well as how to contact and submit a complaint to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, other attorney general offices, and the Compliance Division of the FTC.
• Submit compliance reports to Minnesota, the other plaintiff states, and the FTC every 60 days until it completes the initial rollout of repair resources, and annually thereafter.
• Pay $1 million total to Minnesota and the other plaintiff states for their legal costs and fees.

The settlement may be extended beyond 10 years if Deere violates any of its terms. 

Attorney General Ellison’s other recent antitrust victories

On July 1, 2026, Attorney General Ellison with a bipartisan coalition of states working with the United States Department of Justice announced a settlement of an investigation into the nation’s largest egg producers that revealed an illegal scheme that raised costs for consumers and businesses securing more than 50 million eggs for consumers and $3.3 million.  A bipartisan multistate investigation with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed evidence that Cal-Maine Foods (Cal-Maine), Versova/Centrum (Versova), and Hickman’s Egg Ranch (Hickman’s) illegally coordinated for years to influence a daily price index for eggs, which artificially increased prices for retailers and consumers throughout the country. Of the 53 million eggs obtained through the settlement, roughly 2 million eggs will be delivered directly to food banks and community organizations serving Minnesotans.

On May 7, 2026, Attorney General Ellison led a bipartisan coalition of states working with the United States Department of Justice in resolving the civil antitrust lawsuit against Agri Stats, Inc. for organizing and sharing anticompetitive information exchanges among meat processors. For years, Agri Stats had produced comprehensive weekly and monthly reports for participating meat processors that spanned hundreds of pages and contained recent data relating to sales prices, costs, including worker and farmer compensation, and output. By sharing meat processors’ most granular cost, production, sales, and pricing data across the vast majority of processors in America, Agri Stats allowed these companies to collude with one another to thwart the free market and establish a de-facto scheme that raised costs on consumers across America. The settlement that Attorney General Ellison and the other plaintiffs reached bars Agri Stats from sharing such information in the future.

On April 15, 2026, Minnesota and a coalition of 33 other states won a lawsuit against Live Nation, the owners of Ticketmaster, after a jury found that the company violated federal and state antitrust laws by eliminating competition and driving up costs for fans, artists, and venues across the country. During the five-week trial, the Department of Justice reached a settlement with Live Nation that would not have fundamentally changed the status quo. While some states joined the settlement, the 34-state coalition opted to continue their litigation against Live Nation, which resulted in the April 15 finding that Live Nation violated numerous antitrust laws.

Attorney General Ellison encourages Minnesota consumers and businesses who wish to report concerns about antitrust business practices to submit a report online via the Antitrust Report Form or call the Attorney General’s Office at (651) 296-3353 (Metro area), (800) 657-3787 (Greater Minnesota), or (800) 627-3529 (Minnesota Relay).