''United States v. Archer Daniels Midland Co.'' was a criminal case filed on October 15, 1996 in which the United States alleged that

Archer Daniels Midland Company The Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, commonly known as ADM, is an American multinational food processing and commodities trading corporation founded in 1902 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The company operates more than 270 plants and 4 ...

(ADM) and other corporations and individuals engaged in a conspiracy to fix and maintain prices of

lysine Lysine (symbol Lys or K) is an α-amino acid that is a precursor to many proteins. It contains an α-amino group (which is in the protonated form under biological conditions), an α-carboxylic acid group (which is in the deprotonated −C ...

and

citric acid Citric acid is an organic compound with the chemical formula HOC(CO2H)(CH2CO2H)2. It is a colorless weak organic acid. It occurs naturally in citrus fruits. In biochemistry, it is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle, which occurs in t ...

and to restrain or eliminate competing suppliers of these additives in violation of Section 1 of the

Sherman Antitrust Act The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author. Th ...

(). ADM entered into a plea agreement in which ADM pleaded guilty to both antitrust counts and agreed to pay a combined fine of $100 million ($70 million for the lysine count and $30 million for the citric acid count). This is equivalent to $ million in present-day terms and was at the time the largest antitrust fine ever imposed. The United States' charges against ADM were the second round of charges brought as a result of the

U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

's antitrust investigation into the food and feed additives industries. A few months earlier, in August 1996, the Japanese firms Ajinomoto Co., Inc. and Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co. Ltd. and U.S.-based Korean subsidiary Sewon America, Inc. and their executives agreed to pay more than $20 million combined for their participation in the lysine conspiracy. The Department of Justice recovered more than $195 million in fines arising from its investigation.

References

{{Archer Daniels Midland Price fixing convictions Archer Daniels Midland 1996 in United States case law

See also

References