Audet & Partners, LLP investigated claims as part of a John Deere lawsuit that Deere has illegally monopolized the tractor repair market, potentially for years, by limiting access to essential software outside of John Deere-affiliated dealerships. The critical software unavailable to independent repair shops and farmers is the only viable means of interpreting error codes within the tractor’s ECU, or “engine control unit.”
Denial of access to this software makes it virtually impossible for farmers and unaffiliated repair shops to conduct effective repairs on John Deere tractors. As a result, farmers have been effectively forced to pay millions of dollars in repairs to John Deere-authorized repair centers. These costs may have been significantly mitigated if fair competition in the repair market had not been interrupted by Deere’s monopolization of the critical ECU software.
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