For criminal violations of the Sherman Act, although guided by federal sentencing guidelines, U.S. Department of Justice has great latitude in recommending corporate cartel fines to the federal courts, and its recommendations are nearly always determinative. In this paper, we analyze the...

When they were discovered in 1999, the 16 vitamins cartels were probably the largest, most harmful, and harshest sanctioned international cartels of the late 20th century. Still today, the vitamins cartels are cited by antitrust authorities as the outstanding example of an enforcement action...

This paper is an excerpt of a comprehensive examination of the global bulk vitamins cartels of the 1990s. In terms of its precision and breadth of coverage, the quantitative information now available on vitamins surpasses that of almost any other modern cartel. For example, the internal records...

The amino-acid lysine cartel was a watershed even in antitrust enforcement. It was the first global price-fixing conspiracy to be convicted by U.S. or EU antitrust authorities in 40 years. This paper presents an updated narrative of the history of the global lysine cartel and the legal...

This paper describes and analyzes the outcomes of cartel-whistleblower programs around the world, including those of the United States and Canada, which keep the identities of amnesty recipients secret before and after a case is closed. A total of at least 65 corporations have received full...

This paper presents an updated narrative of the history of the global lysine cartel and the legal consequences for its members in the United States. The story focuses especially upon the role of economists in calculating the size of overcharges and how the estimates can affect the decisions of...

International cartelists today face antitrust investigations and possible fines in a score of national and supranational jurisdictions. This paper aims at providing quantitative information about the size and impacts of international cartel activity in Asia and uses a sample of modern private...

In this paper, we estimate quantitatively the determinants of variation in administrative fines imposed on companies by the European Commission for price-fixing violations. Estimates from our behavioral model provide the first direct test of the predictive power of the optimal deterrence theory...

This paper presents and analyses economic data on 167 international cartels that were discovered by antitrust authorities after January 1990. The median cartel had five corporate members and generated $1.2 billion in sales during the collusive period. Nearly 40% of affected sales occurred in the...