Press-release of 08.07.2010

To establish the fact of cartel, courts require solid proof that independent companies have agreed to undertake prohibited actions, stated Sarah Vance, the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, at the Russian - American workshop on antimonopoly enforcement on 8th July 2010.

In her presentation about typical legal issues in cartel cases, Judge Vance said that Chapter 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits any contracts, associations or collusions that unreasonably restrict trade.

Judge Vance also told about the main principles of proving the facts of agreements, the concepts of direct, indirect and additional evidence, and about importance of assistance by witness experts on unlawful agreements.

As stated by Judge Vance, to establish the fact of cartel courts need evidence that independent companies agreed to undertake prohibited actions.

Judge Vance especially emphasized that courts are careful not to make an error of judgment about unlawful nature of an agreement as it can harm consumers. Therefore, conclusions on the fact of the agreement must be justified against alternative assumptions that the companies under scrutiny were acting independently of each other.

Judge Vance said that in order for the court to arrive to a conclusion on unlawful agreement, typically indirect evidence should be corroborated by two or several additional pieces of evidence.

Then the floor was taken by John McReynolds, an attorney of the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice. He said that arbitration courts in the US frequently use the help of witness-experts on unlawful agreements. Expert economists analyze if the market structure is conducive to potential collusions. To determine whether collusion is likely, they take into account the level of concentration, entry barriers, product differentiation and availability of price information as well as market behavior.

Wrapping up their presentations, Judge Sarah Vance and John McReynolds expressed their gratitude to FAS Russia for the opportunity to take part in the workshop and share antitrust enforcement experience.

Judge Sarah Vance is the chief judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans). Before becoming a judge, she was a partner in a New Orleans law firm "Stone, Pigmen, Walter, Whitman and Hutchinson", specializing in antitrust and commercial disputes.

Judge Vance received J.D. from Tulane Law School in 1978 (number one in her class). She is an executive editor of Tulane Law Review and a member of the Order of Coif (sergeant of the coif). She graduated from Louisiana State University (B.A.in Law) at the top of her class.

John McReynolds: Assistant Chief of New York Field Office, United States Department of Justice, Antitrust Division since September 2005. Has been working in the Division since 1991, specializing in criminal investigations of antitrust violations such as price fixing, bid-rigging collusions, and related offences like frauds in communications industry, tax evading, obstruction of justice and perjury. Big cases successfully investigated by Mr. McReynolds include collusion at the federal level to fix prices for iron-and-silicon alloys involving American, German and Norwegian companies; bid-rigging collusions for supplying milk to public schools in Connecticut; and a 15-year agreement for dividing clientele between the largest suppliers of bed-linen in New York. For successful investigation of a collision involving 35 individuals engaged in tender and tax fraud, including New York apartment schemes, John McReynolds was nominated for the highest award of the Ministry of Justice -the Attorney General Award.