On October 13, 2021, during a panel discussion at the American Bar Association, senior officials of the DOJ Antitrust Division urged contractors to report criminal antitrust violations and obtain leniency before their co-conspirators beat them to the punch.
Under the Division’s Leniency Program, a qualified leniency applicant (a company or individual who was the first to bring the antitrust violation, such as bid rigging, price fixing, and market allocation, to the Division’s attention) could avoid criminal charges and large fines altogether by cooperating against a co-conspirator and paying restitution. Additionally, the successful applicant would benefit by the de-trebling of damages from any resulting civil antitrust lawsuit.
Eyitayo St. Matthew-Daniel, Assistant Chief of the Division’s New York field office, advised, “Big picture, the first company (or person) to self-report basically gets non-prosecution protection for the criminal violation,” which is “worth its weight in gold.”
In explaining that it is truly a “race for leniency,” St. Matthew-Daniel cautioned that contractors need to act swiftly to obtain leniency because “we’ve had situations where a company calls a matter of minutes after a co-conspirator has already called to ask about leniency,” which prevents that company from obtaining leniency for itself by not being first in line. Additionally, that contractor would lose leniency if a whistleblower (employee or subcontractor) first brought the antitrust violation to the attention of the Division.
If you find yourself in this situation, there is no time to waste, so please reach out to the experienced white collar crime attorneys at Dysart Willis, including our Senior Counsel, Jim Kurosad, who served as a Trial Attorney and Assistant Chief of the Antitrust Division’s Atlanta field office for over a decade and has successfully negotiated leniency applications from both sides of the table.