Sorry, BMR, I was am married to a real woman and not this forum.  Sometimes even I have to remember that.  We were out making apple butter over a hickory fire this weekend.  It turned out great.  You really have to cook those apples down a long time.  Then we canned all of it.  Everyone had a real good time.

No, the answer to your question is no.  The defenses for the market manipulation were well thought out in advance by the lawyers of Tyson/IBP as you can see by SH's arguments. 

Essentially, in commodity markets, the way to use market power is to differentiate and then discriminate.  Differentiation on anything except the product for the same time period could be considered the abuse of market power. 

The case of abuse of market power really came down to these elements in the end.  If the delivery and possession of cattle in the captive supply was essentially the same, then competitive markets with transparency would have reduced differences in the two markets to close to zero.  Sometimes the market would get it wrong and one would be higher than the other.  Statistically speaking these differences would have washed out over longer periods of time. 

The problem with part of the captive supply was that its price was tied to the cash market.  Therefore, any discrimination between the cash market would, week after week, decrease the captive supply price.  This would turn out to be a suppression of the whole beef market.

In answer to your question, the futures market is method of setting the price of your commodity in advance with a marketing tool.  If the futures price was different than the cash price (quality considerations taken into account) in the same time period for delivery, then yes, there would be cause for futher study to see if there was market manipulation.  If the price you are talking about is a price that is set with a REAL difference in time period for possession and delivery, then there could be a price differential between the cash market and the futures market and therefore would not be evidence in itself of market manipulation.

As you know, the futures market meets the cash market as the time difference between them decreases.  When it is the same time period for delivery, the price should be the same (with the little differences in time period showing no statistical difference).  Look at any of the commodity markets and you will see this is how it works.  Gold, oil, silver, or whatever. 

I know this is a little confusing unless you think about for a while but we can go over an example if you want. (I rarely proof read before I post on this forum so I always reserve the right to correct or make clear what my I am trying to say).