Companies and individuals that are accused of price-fixing
rarely go to trial. Indeed, in the last 10 years, no corporate
defendant (and only a handful of individuals) has elected to
litigate an international criminal cartel case in a U.S. court. The
vast majority of cases are resolved through negotiated plea
agreements. A few cases, usually involving foreign nationals, are
never concluded because the indicted individuals choose not to
submit to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.
On March 13, 2012, a federal jury in San Francisco returned split
verdicts in a landmark trial against a foreign company (AU
Optronics), its U.S. subsidiary, and five foreign nationals for
their participation in an international conspiracy to fix the
prices of thin-film transistor liquid-crystal display panels
(TFT-LCDs).1
This case is a true outlier because the foreign parent corporation
and the foreign nationals appeared for trial. The verdicts provide
a number of important lessons about the risks and rewards of
forcing the government to prove its case in court. We begin by
providing general background regarding the U.S. Department of
Justice's ("DOJ") investigation and the jury's
verdicts. We then focus on several lessons this case teaches for
companies and their employees who are, or may be, caught up in a
U.S. criminal antitrust investigation:
- The DOJ's leniency program remains robust and continues to trigger many cartel investigations.
- Although rare, going to trial in a criminal price-fixing case remains an option defendants should consider.
- The jury's verdicts in AU Optronics continue the government's mixed conviction record and highlight the challenges the DOJ faces when prosecuting individuals, especially lower-level participants in the conspiracy.
- The DOJ's success in AU Optronics in proving the amount of unlawful conspiracy overcharge beyond a reasonable doubt will embolden the government in fine negotiations in future matters.
- AU Optronics potentially faces a record-breaking fine of $1 billion, and the convicted individuals may end up being sentenced to pay record fines and serve record jail terms—reinforcing the maxim that violating U.S. antitrust laws can result in very serious consequences.
- The dispute during the AU Optronics trial over the appropriate application of the U.S. antitrust laws to foreign companies and foreign conduct will be heard on appeal, potentially providing guidance in this area that could shape future DOJ enforcement efforts.
The AU Optronics Trial and the TFT-LCD Investigation
In 2006, the DOJ accepted Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung
Electronics America, Inc. and Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. (Samsung)
into its leniency program in exchange for informing the government
about a conspiracy to fix prices of TFT-LCDs used in computer
monitors and notebooks, televisions, mobile phones, and other
electronic devices. In the ensuing years, a number of other TFT-LCD
suppliers and several of their executives pled guilty for their
participation in the conspiracy.
In June 2010, a federal grand jury returned a one-count superseding
indictment against Taiwan-based AU Optronics, its Houston-based
U.S. subsidiary, and five current and former executives for
violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits agreements
among competitors that harm competition. The DOJ alleged that the
defendants conspired with other leading TFT-LCD producers at more
than 60 so-called "Crystal Meetings" to fix prices and to
monitor and enforce agreements between 2001 and 2006. The
superseding indictment also charged that senior-level executives of
AU Optronics instructed employees of the U.S. subsidiary to contact
their counterparts at other manufacturers to discuss pricing to
major customers in the United States. The executives attempted to
conceal the "Crystal Meetings" and, when confronted with
the DOJ investigation, allegedly took steps to destroy evidence.
These are the only TFT-LCD defendants to date that have chosen to
defend themselves in court.
Following an eight-week criminal trial, the jury returned split
verdicts. Jurors convicted AU Optronics, its U.S. subsidiary, and
two senior company officials—the former president
(current chairman) and the former executive vice president (current
director). But the jury also found two former lower-level employees
not guilty.2 In addition, a mistrial was declared
against another employee because the jury failed to reach a
unanimous verdict.
In addition to these convictions, seven companies have pled guilty
and agreed to pay more than $890 million in U.S. criminal fines.
One company, LG Display Co., Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiary, LG
Display America, agreed to pay $400 million—the
third-largest criminal fine ever imposed for an antitrust
violation.3
Further, in addition to the individuals convicted, the DOJ has
charged 17 executives for their roles in the conspiracy.
Ten—all foreign nationals, based abroad—agreed
to plead guilty and serve prison sentences ranging from six to 14
months.4 All told, this is one of the DOJ's largest
and most far-reaching global cartel investigations on record. By
the end of the conspiracy period, the worldwide market for TFT-LCD
panels was valued at $70 billion annually.
The jury verdicts in this case are instructive on several fronts.
International corporations and their foreign nationals that could
become ensnared in the DOJ's vigorous cartel enforcement
program should pay particular attention.
The DOJ's Leniency Program Is Alive and Well
At the outset, the long-running TFT-LCD
investigation—at least six years and
counting—confirms that the DOJ's "race to the
prosecutor" leniency program continues to thrive. The program
commits the DOJ to the lenient prosecution of companies and
individuals that self-report anticompetitive conduct and meet
certain specified conditions. In particular, it guarantees a
complete "free pass" from federal prosecution of
antitrust offenses to the first confessor from each cartel,
provided that the DOJ is not already investigating the conspiracy.
Successful applicants are rewarded with no criminal convictions, no
criminal fines, and no jail sentences. The DOJ also offers leniency
under certain conditions when an applicant confesses to a
conspiracy about which the DOJ is already aware.
The impact of the DOJ's leniency program has been magnified by
its "amnesty plus" policy, under which a company
prosecuted for participating in one cartel can reduce its fines by
initially reporting a different conspiracy. At any given time, many
of the government's active grand jury investigations began as a
result of evidence uncovered during an investigation of a
completely separate industry. This often occurs as companies with
multiple product lines report new instances of collusion to secure
fine reductions in an ongoing investigation and to obtain leniency
in a newly disclosed amnesty-plus cartel.
Samsung started the dominoes falling in the TFT-LCD cartel with its
leniency application six years ago. The company and its employees
have escaped all criminal exposure for their participation in that
cartel. In addition, perhaps as a result of amnesty-plus, the DOJ
has since prosecuted a number of other conspiracies. Samsung, for
example, has pled guilty and agreed to pay a $32 million criminal
fine for its role in a related cartel to fix prices of cathode ray
tubes ("CRT"),5 the principal technology used
in televisions and computer monitors before companies adopted
TFT-LCD and other flat-panel technologies. The DOJ's CRT
investigation began in November 2007 when a company implicated in
the TFT-LCD investigation applied for amnesty-plus. Similarly,
evidence discovered in the dynamic random access memory
("DRAM") investigation, in which Samsung paid a $300
million fine,6 prompted the DOJ to review pricing
practices in the TFT-LCD industry. The interlocking nature of the
TFT-LCD, CRT, and DRAM conspiracies is not unique to these
industries. Companies and individuals who are involved in price
discussions with their competitors need to be mindful that one of
their peers could become a government leniency or amnesty-plus
"whistleblower" at any time.
Going to Trial Remains a Viable Option in a Criminal
Price-Fixing Case
By going to trial, AU Optronics and the individual defendants
did something most do not. The vast majority (>90%) of
defendants charged with price-fixing choose to settle and enter
plea agreements with the DOJ rather than take their chances in
court. Most of the pleas are "Type C" agreements that
present a court with a "take it or leave it" joint
recommendation from the DOJ and the defendant on the
appropriateness of a specific sentence or range under the
Sentencing Guidelines. If the court rejects the parties'
recommended sentence, the agreement is void and the defendant can
withdraw the guilty plea. As in other criminal matters, agreeing to
enter a plea agreement in an antitrust case brings with it
significant consequences, but certainly less than the possible
exposure resulting from a trial loss. This, together with the
measure of finality that comes with a negotiated settlement,
explains why most defendants accused of price-fixing forgo their
right to defend themselves in court, despite, in some cases, having
viable defenses. Of course, going to trial remains a high-risk, but
potentially high-reward, strategy for defendants. The results in
this case represent both sides of that coin.
The DOJ's Mixed Conviction Record Continues
The DOJ's track record in international cartel prosecutions
is mixed. The DOJ's own statistics indicate that between 2000
and 2009, 16 individuals contested price-fixing charges at trial.
Eight were convicted, while eight others were
acquitted.7 This case continues the government's
mixed record. On the one hand, the DOJ scored a very significant
win by obtaining convictions over AU Optronics and two top
executives. The guilty verdicts mark the first time the DOJ has
ever convicted a foreign national at trial for a Sherman Act
offense. On the other hand, the jury acquitted two other executives
and could not reach a decision on a third, resulting in a
mistrial.
The split verdict here follows other high-profile losses for the
DOJ, for example in the DRAM and marine hose investigations. In
March 2008, Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the United States District
Court for the Northern District of California declared a mistrial
in the criminal case against a former Hynix Semiconductor, Inc.
executive, Gary Swanson. The jury returned hung 10–2 in
favor of acquitting Mr. Swanson for his participation in the DRAM
conspiracy.8 The DOJ later dismissed the charges against
Mr. Swanson, the only defendant to go to trial in the DRAM
investigation. Six months later, in November 2008, a federal jury
in Florida acquitted Francesco Scaglia and Val Northcutt, two sales
managers from Manuli's Oil & Marine Division, of fixing
prices on the flexible rubber hoses used to transport oil between
tankers and oil storage facilities.9
The government's case against the AU Optronics employees shows
some continuing weaknesses in the DOJ's efforts to prosecute
individuals, even though it obtained some convictions. The
government's losses against individuals here and in other
matters demonstrate that it often has difficulty building a
compelling criminal case against the actors. This may be simply a
function of bad facts for the government, limited persuasiveness of
testimony from co-conspirators who have been granted leniency, or
perhaps jurors' unwillingness to send individuals to jail for
antitrust offenses, particularly if the individual is one of the
lower-level "troops" as opposed to a more senior
executive.
The DOJ Proved the Overcharge, Paving the Way for a Record
Fine
The maximum fine for any conviction under the Sherman Act is
$100 million. The DOJ maintained that this statutorily capped
penalty would not sufficiently reflect the gravity of the harm
caused by the TFT-LCD conspiracy, and so the government proceeded
under the alternative fine provision of the Sentencing Reform Act,
18 U.S.C. § 3571(d). That statute permits a maximum fine of
twice the gross gain (unlawful overcharge) or twice the gross loss
from the offense. In the past, the DOJ has successfully obtained 19
fines greater than the Sherman Act statutory maximum, but only as
part of negotiated plea agreements, never at
trial.10
In this case, a critical issue concerned the applicability of the
Supreme Court's decision in Apprendi v. New
Jersey11 to the alternative sentencing provision.
In Apprendi, the Court held that any fact that increases
the penalty for a crime beyond the statutory maximum (other than
the fact of a prior conviction) must be submitted to a jury and
proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge Susan Illston found nothing
unique about Sherman Act offenses to warrant ignoring
Apprendi's mandate. As a result, instead of having
only to satisfy the lower preponderance of the evidence standard
the government had requested,12 the DOJ was required to
prove the amount of any gross gains to the jury beyond a reasonable
doubt. The jury had to weigh complex testimony from the
parties' economic experts to determine the total pecuniary gain
or loss suffered from the defendants' collusion. Similar to
testimony on damages in civil price-fixing cases, the dispute
centered on the appropriate baseline, or "but-for,"
price. The defendants' expert claimed that TFT-LCD prices were
lower than the prices discussed, and allegedly agreed upon, at the
Crystal Meetings. The DOJ's expert countered that AU
Optronics's prices were higher than they otherwise would have
been because of the conspiracy. The jury agreed with the
government. For the first time in an antitrust case, the DOJ was
able prove the unlawful overcharge beyond a reasonable doubt when
the jury concluded that the ill-gotten gain to the conspirators in
the United States exceeded $500 million.
The DOJ May Obtain a Record Corporate Fine and Record Jail
Terms
The case now enters the sentencing phase, which is slated for
mid-June 2012. AU Optronics could incur a criminal fine as high as
$1 billion, twice the estimated $500 million of ill-gotten gain. If
realized, this would be a record (twice as large as the fine levied
against F. Hoffmann-La Roche in 1999 for its role in the vitamins
conspiracy).
This potentially record-setting fine is a result of Judge
Illston's approach to measure pecuniary gain under the
alternative sentencing guidelines. The court ruled that "gross
gain" included sales of TFT-LCDs, as well as sales of any
finished electronic devices containing those panels.13
Further, gross gain included the profits flowing to all
participants in the conspiracy jointly, not just to AU Optronics.
The ruling reaffirms the need in all cases to understand the scope
of the entire conspiracy, not just a particular defendant's
role in it. Companies need to appreciate their full potential
monetary exposure when considering whether to cooperate with the
government or to litigate. Typically, the recommended fines in plea
agreements relate only to the volume of commerce of the particular
defendant, rather than the group of conspirators.
In addition to obtaining a potential record corporate fine against
AU Optronics, the DOJ could obtain record-setting fines and jail
terms against the convicted individuals. Individuals face fines of
up to $1 million and up to 10 years in prison for violating the
Sherman Act. To date, the record jail sentence for an antitrust
violation is 48 months, and it has been imposed twice. First, in
January 2009, Peter Baci, a former shipping executive, agreed to
plead guilty to participating in a conspiracy to suppress and
eliminate competition in the U.S.–Puerto Rico shipping
lane.14 Then, in May 2010, Steven VandeBrake, the former
sales manager of a ready-mix concrete company, was sentenced to
serve 48 months in prison and to pay a criminal fine for his
participation in three separate conspiracies involving agreements
to fix prices and rig bids for ready-mix concrete sold in
Iowa.15 The second-longest prison sentence was the 30
months handed to Peter Whittle, the owner of PW Consulting (Oil
& Marine) Ltd., in connection with the marine hose
cartel.16 By way of comparison, the average prison
sentence for antitrust defendants in FY 2011 was 17
months.17
Stay Tuned for More on Application of the Sherman Act to
Foreign Conduct
Early in the case, AU Optronics and the individual defendants
tried to dismiss the indictment on jurisdictional grounds, claiming
that the allegations lacked the requisite impact on domestic
commerce. Their arguments implicated the Foreign Trade Antitrust
Improvements Act ("FTAIA"), which provides that the
Sherman Act does not reach commerce outside the United States, with
limited exceptions. Specifically, the statute bars challenges to
conduct involving trade or commerce (other than import trade or
commerce) with foreign nations unless the conduct has a
"direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable" effect
on U.S. domestic commerce or on import commerce and that effect
"gives rise to" a Sherman Act claim.
The court sided with the government and held that there was a
sufficient connection to U.S. commerce to establish jurisdiction.
According to the court, the government's charges did not
relate, as the defendants claimed, to "wholly foreign
conduct." The indictment alleged overt acts by conspirators
both inside and outside the United States, including, for example,
regular instructions by the foreign parent company to employees of
its U.S. subsidiary to contact other TFT-LCD manufacturers to
discuss and agree upon pricing for U.S. customers. As the DOJ
argued in its opposition to the defendants' motion to dismiss
the indictment, although the conspiracy involved some foreign
anticompetitive conduct, the indictment "alleges that
Defendants entered into a conspiracy that violated U.S. law on U.S.
soil." The court agreed, finding the alleged conduct to be in
furtherance of a domestic conspiracy that was not barred by the
FTAIA.18
AU Optronics has stated that it will appeal the verdict. The Ninth
Circuit's consideration of this appeal should provide useful
guidance on the scope of the FTAIA, with which other courts have
been wrestling recently in the civil context. For a brief
discussion of these decisions, see the following two Jones
Day Antitrust Alerts
here and
here.
Conclusion
This case is a clear win for the DOJ, despite its not having
secured convictions across the board. The government prevailed
against the marquee defendants—the two companies (foreign
parent and U.S. subsidiary) and the two individuals who were
top-level executives during the conspiracy period. These verdicts
demonstrated that the DOJ can successfully prosecute non-U.S.
corporate and individual members of a global cartel. In addition,
the DOJ established that it can prove a conspiracy overcharge
beyond a reasonable doubt, dispelling questions about whether
jurors could be convinced by complicated economic testimony over a
lengthy trial.
The implications of this case will not be fully understood until
after sentencing and all appeals have been exhausted. If not
overturned, the convictions will give the DOJ another
"stick" to use on investigated parties, particularly in
plea negotiations against defense counsel who resist fines (for
companies) or jail terms (for individuals). For companies and their
employees—particularly senior
executives—implicated in cartel conduct, the DOJ may
become even more aggressive in the relief it demands as part of a
negotiated resolution. For lower-level employees accused of
participating in conspiracies, the results are less clear. The
government has struggled more here, as evidenced by the two
not-guilty verdicts and the one mistrial in AU Optronics.
Individuals and their counsel should take a hard look at the record
in this case to determine whether, given their own factual
situation, it makes sense to put the government to its burden of
proof. Finally, the appeal in this case means that Ninth Circuit
jurisprudence on the FTAIA and the extraterritorial reach of the
Sherman Act has the potential to shape future DOJ enforcement
efforts against international cartels and foreign collusion.
Footnotes
1. United States v. AU Optronics Corp., No. CR 09-0110-SI (N.D. Cal. Mar. 13, 2012). The DOJ's press release announcing the verdict is available here.
2. Although lower-level employees during the conspiracy, one defendant ascended to become chief executive and the other was elected to a directorship before the trial started.
3. Plea Agreement, United States v. LG Display Co., Ltd., No. 08-cr-803-SI (N.D. Cal. 2008), available here.
4. Four charged individuals from various companies have not yet submitted to jurisdiction in the United States.
5. Press Release, U.S. Dep't of Justice, "Samsung SDI Agrees to Plead Guilty in Color Display Tube Price-Fixing Conspiracy" (Mar. 18, 2011), available here.
6. Press Release, U.S. Dep't of Justice, "Samsung Agrees to Plead Guilty and to Pay $300 million Criminal Fine in for Role in Price Fixing Conspiracy" (Oct. 13, 2005), available here.
7. See John M. Connor, "Problems with Prison in International Cartel Cases," 56 Antitrust Bulletin 311, Table 3 (2011).
8. United States v. Swanson, No. 06-cr-0692-PJH (N.D. Cal. 2008).
9. United States v. Northcutt & Scaglia, No. 07-cr-60220 (S.D. Fla. 2008).
10. "Sherman Act Violations Yielding a Corporate Fine of $10 Million or More," available here.
11. 530 U.S. 466 (2000).
12. United States v. AU Optronics Corp., No. 09-cr-00110-SI, slip op. at 5–6 (N.D. Cal. July 18, 2011).
13. United States v. AU Optronics Corp., No. 09-cr-00110-SI, slip op. at 2-3 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 23, 2011).
14. Plea Agreement, United States v. Baci, No. 08-cr-350-J-32 TEM (M.D. Fla. 2008), available here.
15. Plea Agreement, United States v. VandeBrake, No. 10-cr-4025-MWB (N.D. Iowa 2010), available here.
16. Plea Agreement, United States v. Whittle, No. 07-487-03 (S.D. Tx. 2007), available here.
17. Sharis A. Pozen, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Antitrust Div., "Oversight Hearing on the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division" 14 (Dec. 7, 2011).
18. United States v. AU Optronics Corp., No. 09-cr-00110-SI, slip op. at 8 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 18, 2011).
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