A senior official in the Justice Department Antitrust Division touted U.S. efforts to combat price fixing around the globe at an American Bar Association forum Thursday, noting increased cooperation between the United States and various nations.
Ann O’Brien, a Senior Counsel in the Antitrust Division, praised the assistance of long-term U.S. partners in Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and fresh help from other governments. She said a “new era” in antitrust cartel enforcement collaboration has begun to emerge in South America and Africa.
“Cooperation is burgeoning with enforcers on continents such as South America and in Africa,” said O’Brien, who was not speaking on behalf of the DOJ at the ABA Section of Antitrust Law’s Fall Forum. “So, we continue to have a pick-up-the-phone cooperative relationship with our fellow enforcers around the globe. “
O’Brien said fines DOJ received from antitrust cases were down to $555 million in fiscal 2010, from $1 billion in fiscal 2009, the most secured by the Antitrust Division in the last 10 years. But the number of days violators of antitrust laws spent behind bars increased to 26,046 in fiscal 2010, up from 25,936 in fiscal 2009. (See more statistics here.)
“The division believes that obviously fines are important,” O’Brien said. “But the most effective way to deter cartel activity is to prosecute individuals and seek prison sentence for those individuals.”
