Antitrust law provides treble damages for victims of antitrust violations, but the vast majority of private cases settle. The average or median size of these settlements relative to the overcharges involved has, until now, been only the subject of anecdotes or speculation. To ascertain what we...

The focus of this paper is on penalties imposed on modern private international cartels. I begin by showing that deterrence of recidivism of overt collusion is the overarching objective of the world's leading antitrust regimes, and I sketch the theory of optimal deterrence in the context conduct...

Cartels are illegal in India, as they are almost everywhere. They are subject to heavy fines. Why, then, do businesses frequently try to fix prices? Because doing so usually is profitable. On average cartels raise prices by more than 20%, and probably face less than a 25% chance of being caught...

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...

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...

This paper describes some major trends in cartelization of markets worldwide with a special emphasis on the economic injuries being generated by illegal collusion. Known affected commerce by international cartels discovered during 1990-2014 exceeds a nominal $13.6 trillion worldwide. Projections...

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...

In this journal, James Langenfeld critically reviewed four of the present authors' articles that analyze the size of cartel overcharges and their antitrust policy implications. In this comment, we explain why we believe Langenfeld errs in his criticism of our work. In particular, this comment...

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...