Title: Comment on Cartel Enforcement in the Trump Administration
Abstract: This comment examines trends in anti-cartel enforcement by the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (the Division) and coordinated actions by other U.S. Government agencies, with particular attention paid to developments in 2017 and 2018. By long-standing DOJ policy, criminal enforcement refers exclusively to investigation of hardcore (per se illegal) cartel conduct and the imposition of penalties imposed under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Among the performance indicators examined are three measures of cartel-enforcement success chosen to be highlighted by Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Makan Delrahim’s written testimony before the antitrust subcommittee of Congress in October 2018. Delrahim’s testimony is important because it is the first formal explanation to Congress of the first year or two of President Trump’s antitrust enforcement goals and efforts. By these traditional measures, cartel enforcement has markedly slowed in 2017-2018.
This note also comments on the Antitrust Division’s cartel enforcement goals and its expected future actions. This paper can only analyze publicly available information. It is possible that the Division may have a number of significant big cases in the pipeline that could modify the recent downturn, or it could be redeploying its resources into novel collusion cases. I discuss these possibilities.
Finally, a smattering of recent reports and news articles purport to find a decline in cartel enforcement activity among a broad swarth of antitrust authorities. Therefore, I examine whether the recent decline in the Division’s enforcement outcomes is sui generis or part of a global phenomenon.
Publication Year: 2019
Publication Date: 2019-06-05
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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