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
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
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
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
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
In remarks delivered on January 18, 2022, and January 24, 2022, Jonathan Kanter, the Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division, laid out the areas where he perceives...more
The end of 2021 continued to be a busy time for antitrust enforcers in the U.S. and around the world. Perhaps most notably, in November the Senate confirmed Jonathan Kanter to lead the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust...more
More than halfway through the year, 2021 has shaped up to be another busy time for antitrust enforcers. In July, the Biden administration confirmed that antitrust remains a top priority by issuing a sweeping Executive Order,...more
On June 25, 2021, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (the “Division”) announced the first criminal antitrust prosecution and “international resolution obtained by the Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF).”...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on June 7, 2021, that a North Carolina engineering firm agreed to pay a $7 million fine and $1.5 million in restitution after pleading guilty to engaging in bid rigging and fraud...more
A new year, a new administration in the United States, and new cartel enforcement leadership in the United Kingdom have begun. In the United States, first-of-their-kind criminal charges have been brought involving labor and...more
No matter how novel a scheme about “coordinating” with competitors to instill “discipline” in the market may seem, odds are that the antitrust enforcers have seen it before and eventually will prosecute it. Take the recent...more
The Background: Earlier in 2018, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission warned that several domestic companies would face criminal cartel prosecutions in 2018. The Situation: The ACCC has begun to follow...more
The DOJ's investigation into price fixing and bid rigging in the automotive parts industry has yielded another conviction, but not one for violation of the antitrust laws. Instead, a company executive recently pleaded guilty...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ or Department) released updated guidance on the Antitrust Division’s Leniency Program, on January 17, 2017. The Leniency Program allows corporations and individuals who self-report their cartel...more
In 2004, as then NY Attorney General Elliot Spitzer focused his efforts to root out fraud in an insurance brokerage giant, Marsh & McLennan, two Marsh executives, William Gilman and Edward McNenney, were caught in his...more
The first European citizen to be extradited from Europe to the United States for criminal antitrust conduct recently succeeded in having a Berlin court refer the matter of his extradition to the Court of Justice of the...more
On 23 March 2016, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) announced that it had fined four cold-storage firms for having put in place anticompetitive arrangements while in extended merger talks with one...more