Antitrust Division Issues 2014 Edition of Its Annual Newsletter

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division today issued the 2014 edition of its annual newsletter on its website.  The newsletter highlights the Antitrust Division’s civil and criminal enforcement actions, international cooperation efforts and competition advocacy over the last year.

The newsletter includes a message from Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer, which focuses on the strong return on investment that antitrust enforcement provides, the division’s continued focus on litigation effectiveness and the division’s commitment to enforcing the antitrust laws and promoting competition in all sectors of the American economy. “We remain steadfast in our efforts to ensure that markets are free of anticompetitive restraints and consumers benefit from robust competition,” Assistant Attorney General Baer stated in his message.

This year’s update highlights the division’s criminal enforcement matters, including criminal fines, which totaled more than $1 billion for the third time since 2009, and incarceration for culpable executives.  The division won trial victories in its ongoing real estate foreclosure auction investigation and its investigation into anticompetitive behavior at Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites, and secured multiple guilty pleas in its automotive parts, tax liens and ocean shipping investigations.

Other newsletter articles describe the division’s civil enforcement program–including its trial victories against both Apple Inc. and BazaarVoice Inc. in the e-book and online ratings and review software industries, respectively. The division also reached civil settlements to protect consumers and preserve competition in the airline, broadcasting and deepwater oil well chemical industries.

The newsletter also features articles about the division’s use of new document production techniques and mergers that increase bargaining leverage.