Federal Criminal Antitrust Enforcement

We last reviewed the performance of the Obama Administration's criminal antitrust enforcement during the second year of the first Obama administration. Laing, D.: Criminal Antitrust Enforcement Under the Obama Administration, Business Crimes Bulletin, September 2010. Now three years later and well into the second Obama Administration, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has undergone a sufficient number of structural changes, announced certain important policy changes, and has had three more years of activity for us to review whether the Antitrust Division has fulfilled Candidate Obama's campaign promise to “reinvigorate antitrust enforcement” and take “aggressive action to curb the growth of international cartels.” Candidate Obama famously stated that, in comparison with antitrust enforcement under the supervision of George H.W. Bush, “Under my administration, the antitrust laws will mean something again.”