Recently the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and the FBI jointly announced the launch of a new online portal for information on international fugitives who have been charged with antitrust offenses and other crimes affecting the competitive process. There are 77 fugitives on the list. As the press release notes, these individuals were not indicted under…
The Supreme Court has now denied cert in three different challenges to the per se rule in criminal antitrust cases, the latest being the denial of the cross-cert petition by Brent Brewbaker. It is unlikely that a Court of Appeals will overturn the per se rule given the extensive precedent—although it is not impossible. Instead,…
On February 1, 2022, Brent Brewbaker, a former executive of Contech Engineered Solutions LLC was convicted by a jury for his participation in bid-rigging and fraud schemes targeting the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT). The conviction seemed an unremarkable event at the time. “Evidence showed that Brewbaker instructed a co-conspirator to submit non-competitive bids…
In the last 12 months, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division has announced 19 new criminal cases. All of the cases focused on local markets. While this is not entirely new, it is in stark contrast to the global cartel cases, such as the auto parts cases, from a decade ago, or even the the…
There has been a series of announcements by the Department of Justice of pilot programs designed to lure “insiders” to expose crimes, particularly financial crimes. The first announcement was a new Whistleblower Pilot Program to financially reward whistleblowers in certain circumstances. See DOJ Announces New Whistleblower Pilot Program, Cartel Capers, March 14, 2024. More recently, on…
I have not written a blog post in some time. Been busy, or perhaps a bit lazy, but the Fourth Circuit opinion in United States v. Brewbaker, __ F. 4th __(4th Cir. 12/1/2023), 2023-2 Trade Cases ¶82,716; 2023 Westlaw 8286490 caught my attention. The decision represents a surprising departure from black letter law that collusion between…
Two items recently in the cartel news caught my eye because they have something in common: the chicken parts criminal price fixing prosecution failures and Donald C. Klawiter’s article calling for A Really New Leniency Program: A Positive, Cooperative, and Enthusiastic Partnership for Effective Antitrust Enforcement, Antitrust, Vol. 36, No. 3, Summer 2022. What they have…
The Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association’s 14th International Cartel Workshop took place over June 27-29, 2022 in Lisbon, Portugal. By all accounts the conference was a success and well attended. The only thing missing was, um, any international cartel cases to talk about. There are likely numerous reasons that international cartel cases have…
It has become common for defendants indicted on criminal antitrust charges to argue that the use of the per se rule in their trial is unconstitutional. The United States, however, has beaten back each attack with ample precedent from the relevant court of appeals fortified with long standing Supreme Court precedent (i.e., Trenton Potteries and…
I have no expertise in predicting whether the Supreme Court will grant certiorari on any given petition. But I am hopeful that the high court will do so on the issue of whether the application of the per se rule in a criminal antitrust case is unconstitutional. I have seen a couple of items recently…
