Overview of Current Cartel Investigations
Although the third quarter of 2018 saw guilty pleas and new
indictments in several current Department of Justice (DOJ)
investigations, 2018 continues a downward trend in antitrust
enforcement. At its current pace, DOJ's annual 2018 fines will
end around $300 million—well short of the billion-dollar plus
highs in 2014 and 2015, during the height of the auto parts and
foreign exchange investigations. The same downward trends exists in
the EU, where the European Commission did not render any cartel
decisions in the third quarter of 2018. Nonetheless, in a sign of
things to come, the Commission took significant procedural steps in
the ethanol benchmarks and car emissions cases.
