Global Cartel Defense

A cartel investigation is an inquiry by a competition authority into suspected agreements among competitors that restrain trade, such as price-fixing, bid-rigging, output limitation, or market and customer allocation. In the United States these matters are pursued criminally by the DOJ Antitrust Division and civilly by private claimants, and parallel inquiries by authorities abroad frequently follow, so a single course of conduct can generate exposure on several continents at once.

Yes, through the structure the work requires. Cartel conduct rarely stops at a border, and a Department of Justice investigation commonly runs alongside inquiries by the European Commission, the UK Competition and Markets Authority and authorities elsewhere. Our London and Dubai offices operate through partner firms, and competition proceedings in the European Union and the United Kingdom require locally admitted counsel in any event, so we hold the overall strategy from Chicago and coordinate locally admitted competition counsel in each jurisdiction, with one chronology, one privilege protocol and one sequence for what is said where. What we describe is a capability and an approach rather than a record of particular outcomes.

Leniency, or amnesty, is a program under which the first cartel participant to self-report and cooperate may receive reduced penalties or, in some regimes, avoid prosecution altogether. The calculus is unforgiving. Leniency in one jurisdiction does not bind another, timing is decisive, and a marker sought too early or too late can forfeit the benefit. We assess the option early and, where it is pursued, coordinate applications across the authorities involved.

Criminal exposure in the United States is the province of the DOJ Antitrust Division, which can pursue companies and individuals for conduct such as price-fixing and bid-rigging. Civil exposure comes from private plaintiffs and class actions seeking treble damages under the antitrust laws, and often follows the criminal matter. The two proceed on different tracks with different stakes, and a defense has to account for both at once so a concession on one front does not become an admission on the other.

With a single chronology and a single order of disclosure. The master chronology of what the company knew, did and said is built once, from the documents preserved in the first hours, and every submission in every forum is checked against it before it goes out. Privilege is mapped jurisdiction by jurisdiction, because EU proceedings give no protection to in-house legal advice and U.S. work product may not travel either, so sensitive analysis is routed to the lawyers whose privilege will hold where the paper sits. Cooperation is sequenced so that a proffer to one authority never surfaces as an admission before another, and the production of European personal data into U.S. discovery is cleared under the data-protection rules that restrict it. One partner decides the order in which anything is said anywhere, and the locally admitted counsel we coordinate carry that order into their own proceedings.

Cartel investigations frequently expose the company and its executives at the same time, and their interests can diverge as cooperation decisions are made. We assess potential conflicts at the outset and structure the representation accordingly, advising the company and seeing that individuals who need separate counsel obtain it, so that the defense is sound and the privilege is protected.