DOJ’s Antitrust Division has been relatively quiet in prosecuting criminal cartel or bid-rigging cases. Since 2015, the Antitrust Division’s criminal enforcement has fallen from the billions in penalties each year to the...more
At the mid-year point, 2024 is shaping up to be an eventful year in cartel enforcement. In the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Antitrust Division (Division) enjoyed two significant victories and finally...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently issued a landmark decision that temporarily altered the standard of review for antitrust bid-rigging prosecutions against manufacturers and distributors in...more
The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF) has struck again, this time with the help of a Title III wiretap. ...more
As anticipated, cartel enforcement is ramping up at the start of 2024 and investigations relating to artificial intelligence (AI) are taking center stage. Leadership of both the broader Department of Justice (DOJ) and the...more
The year 2023 ended with a bang in the cartel space, with a federal court of appeals upending what was long believed to be the scope of conduct that should be considered per se under the Sherman Act. The new year, 2024,...more
Since the Antitrust Division's March 2022 announcement that it would once again consider and bring criminal charges for violations of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, DOJ has resisted calls for guidance about what conduct would...more
Participants in the renewable energy industry should be aware of antitrust and competition rules because renewable energy is no longer a nascent field. Europe generated almost 40% of its electricity from renewable sources in...more
The third quarter of 2023 was eventful for both domestic and international cartel enforcers. In the United States, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to revamp policies to sharpen its enforcement efforts. On...more
With the end of summer and fall right around the corner, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Antitrust Division is gearing up for several crucial displays of its criminal enforcement priorities across multiple...more
The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division ("DOJ") recently resolved a criminal case with Teva Pharmaceuticals and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals via deferred prosecution agreements ("DPAs"), which include a novel remedy for...more
At this mid-point of 2023, and now several months on from the ABA’s Spring Antitrust conference, there have been several notable developments concerning cartel enforcement, as new leadership settles in at the U.S. Department...more
The U.S. Department of Justice’s (“DOJ’s”) ongoing efforts against no-poach agreements suffered their latest setback on April 28, 2023, following the Connecticut federal court’s ruling in U.S.A. v. Mahesh Patel, acquitting...more
This newsletter is a summary of the antitrust developments we think are most interesting to your business. Vivian Cao, partner at Allen & Overy Lang Yue, is our editor this month....more
In December 2022, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General announced a memorandum of understanding memorializing their...more
On January 17, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice announced that it had obtained another in a recent string of guilty pleas as a result of investigations into government contracting by the Procurement...more
In 2022, antitrust authorities around the world were pursuing more investigations, bringing new types of cases, and making policy changes to spark even more enforcement actions. In the United States, the Department of...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF, or Strike Force) celebrates its third anniversary this month. Formed in November 2019 as an interagency partnership consisting of DOJ’s antitrust...more
Continuing its prolific run of indictments, guilty pleas, and convictions, on July 13, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF or Strike Force) secured a guilty plea from a Texas...more
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has had a rough year in the criminal arena. While the Antitrust Division has aggressively blocked several proposed mergers, it has lost several significant criminal cases. ...more
Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a Florida grand jury indicted three men for conspiring to rig bids for customized promotional products to the U.S. Army and charged two of them with conspiring to...more
US Supreme Court Requests Solicitor General’s Views in FCA Rule 9(b) Context - On May 16, 2022, the US Supreme Court requested a brief from the US Solicitor General on the level particularly required by Federal Rule of...more
Since the last edition of the QCC, there has been a series of dramatic developments in the criminal antitrust enforcement space in the U.S. from the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (Division)....more
Procurement Collusion Strike Force - The Procurement Collusion Strike Force, formed by the Department of Justice in 2019, is ramping up enforcement pressures against government contractors. The Strike Force brings together...more
WHAT HAPPENED - - On back-to-back days this month, defendants charged and prosecuted by the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (the DOJ) were acquitted on all Sherman Act charges in first-of-their-kind criminal...more