Anti-trust law penalizes companies when they conspire to set prices rather than allowing them to be determined by market forces. If a company is in this category, it faced allegations of violating anti-competitive or price-fixing laws and was fined or reached a settlement.
Sources
Violation Tracker contains more than 2,000 entries involving price-fixing dating back to 2000 with over $99 billion in penalties. About 300 of these cases with $17 billion in penalties were handled by the U.S. Justice Department, especially the Antitrust Division, which has primary responsibility for enforcing the main federal law on price-fixing, Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Other federal agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission account for 85 of the cases and $11 billion in penalties.
Price-fixing is also prosecuted at the state level. State attorneys general, sometimes acting in concert with one another, account for more than 350 of our price-fixing cases and $17 billion of the penalty total.
The largest number of our price-fixing entries come from private litigation. Class action and multidistrict lawsuits account for nearly 1,500 entries and $55 billion in penalties (mainly settlements).
Search Techniques
The easiest way to identify price-fixing cases in Violation Tracker is to use the Advanced Search page. Choose the price-fixing option from the Offense Type dropdown to get a list of all the cases—or you can combine that option with various other options to narrow your search. For example, you can choose the agency action option from the Action Type dropdown plus the state option from the Level of Government dropdown to display only state AG cases.
You can display only class action and multidistrict lawsuits by combining the price-fixing option from the Offense Type dropdown with the private litigation option from the Action Type dropdown. Private litigation entries include full case citations. Violation Tracker subscribers also have access to key court documents such as settlement agreements.
Price-fixing is not the only type of anti-competitive offense found in Violation Tracker. Other categories include energy market manipulation and kickbacks. You can choose the competition-related offense option from the Offense Group on the homepage to display all cases or you can combine it with a company name. There is also an Offense Group option on the Advanced Search page, where you can combine it with a variety of other search options.
