John Deere Is Paying Farmers $99 Million for Allegedly Monopolizing Repair

On Monday, farming equipment manufacturer John Deere announced it would pay $99 million in a settlement to a class action lawsuit brought on by its customers. The suit accused the company of restricting access to tools and repairs of its tractors and other farming equipment, effectively leveraging a monopoly on the repair market for its products.

The money, if accepted by the farmer-aligned plaintiffs, will go into a fund, then eventually be distributed to Deere equipment owners who can prove they paid for dealership repairs sometime since 2018. In the settlement, John Deere also says it will make repair tools and services more widely available. For the next 10 years, at least.

John Deere has kept tight control over how its customers can fix or tinker with its equipment by disallowing access via software restrictions or requiring machines to be brought to approved shops for repair. That has left thousands ...