FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          AT
MONDAY, JULY 31, 199                               (202) 616-2771
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888

                                 
  IOWA DAIRY AND MANAGER CHARGED IN MILK BID-RIGGING CONSPIRACY

     The Department of Justice announced today that it has
charged an Iowa dairy and a manager from that dairy with
conspiring to rig bids for contracts to supply milk and related
products to certain public school districts in western Illinois
and eastern Iowa.  
     The one-count information, filed in U.S. District Court in
Peoria, Illinois, against Swiss Valley Farms of Mount Joy, Iowa,
and Joseph Gau, a manager at the dairy's headquarters, was the
131st criminal case filed since May 1988 as part of an ongoing
federal investigation of collusion in the dairy industry.
     The defendants were charged with participating in a
conspiracy to rig bids, between 1986 and the 1989-1990 school
year, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.   To carry
out the conspiracy, Swiss Valley Farms and its co-conspirators
discussed among themselves the submission of prospective bids,
designated which dairy would be the low bidder and refrained from
bidding or submitted intentionally high bids. 
     Anne K. Bingaman, Assistant Attorney General in charge of
the Antitrust Division, said that the investigation was conducted
by the Chicago Office of the Antitrust Division with assistance
from the U. S. Attorney's Office in Springfield, Illinois, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation's office in St. Louis, Missouri,
the Great Plains Regional Office of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and the Illinois Attorney General's Office.
     To date, 67 corporations and 60 individuals have been
convicted and a total of $59 million in fines imposed in cases
involving the supply of dairy products to public school
districts.  Some 29 individuals have been sentenced to serve an
average of approximately seven months imprisonment.  Sixteen
grand juries in 12 states continue to investigate the milk
industry.
     The maximum penalty for a corporation convicted under the
Sherman Act for a violation occurring before November 16, 1990 is
a fine that is the greatest of $1,000,000, twice the pecuniary
gain to the corporation derived from the crime or twice the
pecuniary loss caused to the victims of the crime.
     The maximum penalty for an individual convicted under the
Sherman Act for a violation occurring before November 16, 1990,
is three years imprisonment and a fine not to exceed the greatest
of $250,000, twice the pecuniary gain to the individual derived
from the crime or twice the pecuniary loss caused to the victims
of the crime.
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95-424