SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - ABC says it has reached a settlement with a South Dakota meat producer that filed a more than $1 billion lawsuit against the network over its reports on the company's lean, finely textured beef product that critics dubbed ''pink slime.''
ABC spokeswoman Julie Townsend says in a statement that the network has "reached an amicable resolution of its dispute with the makers'' of the product. Dakota Dunes-based Beef Products Inc. sued the television network in 2012, saying ABC's coverage was a "disinformation campaign'' that misled consumers into believing the product is unsafe, is not beef and isn't nutritious.
The defamation trial against ABC and producer Jim Avila started earlier this month.