Antitrust Lawyer Blog

On June 3, 2008, Steven L. Berman, a Maryland tax lien agent, pled guilty and agreed to pay $750,000 for his role in rigging bids in tax lien auctions in several Maryland counties. Mr. Berman is likely to face a period of incarceration up to 10 years.If a property owner in Maryland fails to pay…

On June 3, 2008, Raman International Inc. (“Raman”), a defense contractor, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. It agreed to pay the maximum criminal fine for a corporation charged with conspiracy to commit bribery of $500,000 and restitution fees amounting to $327,192 to the Department of Defense (“DOD”).According to the plea…

On June 2, 2008 Chancellor William B. Chandler III of Delaware decided to unseal the complaint in a case brought by two pension fund shareholder groups against Yahoo and its Board of Directors. The plaintiffs accused the Yahoo Board of Directors, especially CEO Jerry Yang, of violating their fiduciary duties and enacting barriers such as…

On May 30, 2008, as a part of their ongoing investigation into the military restraints industry, the DOJ reached a plea agreement with Wilson Freire, a former government contracts manager at Peck & Hale LLC. Mr. Freire pled guilty to two separate conspiracies of bid rigging and taking kickbacks on contracts taken in connection with…

On May 29, 2008, Anthony M. Tesvich, a former employee of Home Depot, was charged with three counts of tax evasion and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.According to the Department of Justice, the conspiracy took place from October 2002 to October 2007. Mr. Tesvich took kickbacks from various foreign vendors seeking to…

On May 28, 2008, the Department of Justice blocked a proposed $750 million acquisition of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company’s College Division (“HM College”) by Cengage Learning, Inc (“Cengage”). The DOJ required the divestiture of Cengage’s assets related to the textbooks and education materials of 14 of its college level courses. The textbooks ranged from…

On May 27, 2008, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) reached a settlement with the National Realtors Association (“NAR”) that requires NAR to allow internet-based real estate brokers to compete with traditional real estate brokers. NAR is a trade association of 1.2 million real estate members.According to the DOJ, NAR’s policies stifled competition by restricting the…

On May 16, 2008, in a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a 2006 Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) decision that found the North Texas Specialty Physicians (“NTSP”), based in Fort Worth, TX, participated in horizontal price fixing activities.The Court found that the FTC’s decision was correct and there was…

On May 15, 2008, Durwanda Elizabeth Morgan Heinrich, a dirt, sand, and gravel subcontractor, and Kern Carver Bernard Wilson, a former contract employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, were each charged with one count of conspiring to commit bribery. Additionally, Heinrich was charged with two counts of offering a bribe to a public…

On May 8, 2008, Bruce McCaffrey, Quantas Airways’ Vice President of Freight for the Americas, pled guilty and agreed to serve eight months in jail as well as pay a criminal fine of $20,000 for his role in a conspiracy to fix rates for international cargo shipments. Mr. McCaffrey was the highest ranking Quantas Airways…