At least eight states—Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin—have laws that prohibit foreign ownership of agricultural land. If the Shuanghui acquisition goes through, any hog farms, crop fields, manure lagoons or other land used for agricultural production and now owned by Smithfield in these states could invite legal challenges.
Smithfield's 11 slaughterhouses and meat factories in the eight states likely are exempt, legal experts said. However, some of those operations may rely on farm, feed or waste facilities that could be subject to legal challenge.
Smithfield does not disclose specifics of its property holdings, and the company declined to comment for this story. But a source close to the deal told Reuters that dealmakers and lawyers were aware of the issues, and the foreign ownership laws in different U.S. states had been discussed leading up to the May 29 deal announcement.
They believe the laws will not jeopardize Shuanghui's ability to close its purchase as planned in the second half of this year. However, the restrictions could affect how Smithfield and its subsidiaries operate post-merger, the source added.
The morning the deal was announced, Smithfield's attorneys sent a letter to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller's office, alerting the agency to the takeover. Since then, in Iowa and elsewhere, state officials, legal experts and industry critics are raising questions about whether Smithfield under Shuanghui ownership will comply with these little-known and rarely tested laws, Reuters has learned.
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In Iowa, Miller's office is seeking more information from Smithfield about the deal, a spokesman said.
The nation's largest hog producing state and its Democrat Attorney General have a history of opposing Smithfield's corporate transactions. The company currently operates in Iowa under a consent decree with Miller, who had charged that a 2000 acquisition by Virginia-based Smithfield violated a state law barring livestock production by meat packers.
The letter Smithfield sent declared that the merger will not change its current agreements or commitments with the state—a possible reference to the consent decree.
Fights and Workarounds
Any state that does seek to challenge the Smithfield deal could find itself attempting to unravel a snarl of property ownership records.
"It's hard to police because you start getting layers of entities and you've got to figure out who owns what and where they are exactly," said Anthony Schutz, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law in Lincoln.
(Read More: China's Grab of US Hogs Stokes Interest on Hill)
Smithfield's publicly available corporate records do not disclose how much farmland Smithfield and its subsidiaries own in states with laws barring foreign ownership.
Smithfield's Murphy-Brown of Missouri owns farmland in that state, according to court filings and tax records. Its Murphy-Brown West division operates 150 company-owned farms in eight states: Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Colorado.
Three of those states have laws against foreign ownership, though a pending change to Missouri law could ease the way for foreign owners. But even in the states with such laws, companies have succeeded in finding ways to elude such restrictions, say legal experts.
In Iowa, for example, entities can create a U.S. subsidiary that is more than 50 percent controlled by people who meet the residency requirements, said Roger McEowen, director of the Iowa State University's Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation.
