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John Deere has agreed to pay farmers $99 million to resolve a class action lawsuit that accused the agricultural giant of preventing farmers and mechanics from accessing the materials needed to repair equipment, as reported earlier by Reuters. As part of the proposed settlement, John Deere says it will make repair resources available for a period of 10 years, “on a license or subscription basis.”
The company has also agreed to start allowing equipment owners and repair shops to reprogram or perform diagnostics on equipment while in offline mode by the end of 2026. These terms will allow equipment owners to “avoid going to authorized Deere Dealers to make repairs,” according to the settlement.
The class action lawsuit was initially filed in 2022, with the settlement funds going toward impacted members who paid John Deere dealers for repairs from January 2018 and “until the date of preliminary approval.”
John Deere denies any wrongdoing. It’s also currently facing a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission, accusing it of increasing repair costs by making farmers use its network of authorized dealers to fix their equipment.
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