Competition Corner

AAG Blizzard’s announcement marks the latest in a trend of increasing focus and scrutiny from state-level antitrust enforcement agencies. This change suggests that many states are standing ready to address antitrust enforcement if federal enforcement, which has been reinvigorated under the Biden administration, is weakened.  

On October 31, the Department of Justice (DOJ) fulfilled its recent promise to “vigorously enforce Section 2 of the Sherman Act” by securing the first guilty plea in a criminal monopolization case since the 1970s. Nathan Zito, the president of a Montana-based paving and asphalt company, admitted to one count of attempted monopolization of the market for highway crack-sealing services in Montana and Wyoming.

The ABA and IBA hosted the 2022 International Cartel Workshop in Lisbon, Portugal, over three days in late June. The biennial workshop is considered the premier international cartel conference, and was attended by senior members of the private bar and government enforcers from around the world, including several members of Winston’s Antitrust/Competition Group.

The U.S. Department of Justice has signaled its readiness to criminally prosecute individual executives whose conduct violates Section 2 of the Sherman Act. This section makes it unlawful for any person to “monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations”—in other words, targeting those actions taken to attain or preserve monopoly power. 

The Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Richard Powers, sat for an interview with the American Bar Association (ABA) on February 12, 2021, to discuss the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) priorities under the new administration.

In recent remarks, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard Powers revealed that the DOJ Antitrust Division has yet to find a corporate defendant whose compliance program fits the Division’s “gold standard.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) recorded its first criminal indictment for wage fixing on December 9, 2020. The two-count indictment was filed in the Eastern District of Texas against Neeraj Jindal for his alleged participation in a conspiracy to fix the wages of physical therapists and physical-therapy assistants providing at-home care in mid to late 2017.

Companies that engage in competitive bidding for government contracts should take note: the U.S. Department of Justice has announced the addition of 11 new partner offices to its “Procurement Collusion Strike Force,” bringing the total number of national agencies and offices participating in the interagency partnership to 29.  

When conducting civil antitrust investigations, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) issues Civil Investigation Demands (CIDs) for relevant documents, information, and sworn testimony from parties and non-parties to the investigation.

What are dawn raids and how can companies and the law firms representing them prepare? In this episode of Winston & Strawn’s Competition Corner Podcast, Antitrust Partner Jeff Amato turn to the cartel context and discuss dawn raids.

As Competition Corner recently reported, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is continuing its recent trend on extraditing and prosecuting foreign individuals who are charged with violating antitrust laws.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard A. Powers has recently issued several warnings—some “new”—regarding the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division’s leniency program. Powers’ comments should be carefully considered by companies that are considering cooperation or are cooperating already.

The long arm of U.S. antitrust law recently caught a former air cargo executive. Maria Christina “Meta” Ullings, a Dutch national and former senior vice-president of Martinair Holland N.V., arrived in Atlanta, Georgia last month after Italian courts ruled in favor of her extradition.

A pending certiorari petition under the title Sanchez et al. v. United States, no. 19-288, asks the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the question: “whether the operation of the per se rule in criminal antitrust cases violates the constitutional prohibition—grounded in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments—against instructing juries that certain facts presumptively establish an element of a crime.”