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
California Assistant Attorney General (AAG) Paula Blizzard recently announced that the California Attorney General’s Office (AGO) intends to “reinvigorat[e] criminal prosecutions” under California’s Cartwright Act, Cal. Bus....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
A well-known idiom - widely credited to Ben Franklin in the 1700s - is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Yet, few companies actively train their personnel to recognize the risk of a trade secret...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
A three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned an executive’s bid-rigging antitrust conviction, holding that the district court erred in applying the per se standard to the executive’s...more
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal discusses Intel's potential receipt of billions of dollars in government funding to build secure facilities for producing microchips for U.S. military and intelligence applications....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
In a pair of criminal cases , the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a one-two punch to the Justice Department’s prosecution of corruption cases based on violations of the criminal wire fraud statute. In Ciminelli v. U.S., and...more
In September 2016, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York charged, among other defendants, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign manager, Joseph Percoco, not-for-profit Fort Schuyler...more
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States issued five decisions: National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, No. 21-468: This case involved a constitutional challenge to California’s “animal cruelty law” known as...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
Pennsylvania Medical Supply Company Agrees to $5 Million Settlement - A Pennsylvania medical supply company, AdaptHealth LLC, formerly known as QMES LLC, agreed to a $5.3 million settlement to resolve allegations that it...more
Companies face a difficult choice between taking heed of growing anti-ESG voices while continuing to meet investor and shareholder demands. For several years, companies have come under intense pressure from their boards,...more
On 23 March 2023 the UK Competition and Markets Authority (‘CMA’) issued an announcement that it has issued fines totalling nearly £60m to 10 construction firms for illegally colluding to rig bids for demolition and asbestos...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