Antitrust Violations

Under the Sherman Antitrust Act, price fixing and market allocations are illegal. Competitors must not collude to determine the cost of products in a way that harms the public. The courts view price fixing as either “illegal per se” — when competitors conspire to charge higher prices — or when suppliers and manufacturers conspire “vertically” to raise costs to consumers.

If the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice believes that a decision to raise prices is the result of an agreement with a competitor to do so, the burden to prove otherwise falls on the defendant in order to prevent an indictment and the enormous damage caused by it to a person’s or company’s reputation.

In each instance, competitors putting each other in deals (“deal trading”), price adjustments, competitive price matching and territorial divisions may look like an illegal violation of antitrust laws to federal prosecutors.

As a former federal prosecutor, he understands how large federal antitrust investigations are conducted by the government, and what must be done to effectively defend these allegations and has even appeared at a seminar sponsored by the State Bar of Texas with an attorney from the Antitrust Division to teach other lawyers how to represent clients in antitrust investigations and trials.

Dan Guthrie represents clients accused of antitrust law violations such as:

• Artificially inflating prices
• Bid rigging
• Collusion to divide up business territories
• Fixing minimum pricing schedules
• Selling goods below market value
• Dumping to temporarily decrease prices
• Conspiring to reduce competition
• Deal trading

In order to convict the defendant of price fixing, the prosecution must establish that a defendant intentionally conspired to fix prices or harm competition. What may be a strategic positioning of resources or a creative pricing schedule may look like price fixing to a federal investigator.

That’s why it’s important to retain legal representation as early as possible.

Dan Guthrie collaborates with former FBI and IRS special agents and with computer forensic experts and highly skilled forensic accountants.

Your legal team will use the latest software technology available to organize and analyze the vast amounts of electronically stored information (ESI) typically subpoenaed by the government in cases like yours. This subpoenaed ESI typically includes not only documents but also emails, text messages and even the hard drives from copying machines.

After a review of the information, he can piece together the evidence the government believes proves an antitrust violation and then will devise an effective defensive strategy to do everything possible to prevent an indictment.

If a trial can’t be avoided, his extensive courtroom experience and meticulous preparation allow him to mount the most aggressive defense possible.