The concept of anti-trust law is sound. In any area of business with sufficient barriers to entry, price-fixing (among other anti-trust-targtted activities) could be a serious problem.

The government’s execution of the anti-trust laws is, from a consumer point of view, terrible. It does seem, in many respects, “a worthless, welfare job program for armies of lawyers on both sides.”

Just because the government does a bad job of something doesn’t mean that the something in question doesn’t need to be done – it just needs to be done better.

How much is paid in fines is a poor measure (to put it politely) of how well they are doing their jobs.

Two last tidbits:

“The Samsung and Beyer executives who led recent cartels went to jail for 6 to 18 months, and had their careers ruined by their lawbreaking. You are pretty heatless if you think that isn’t punishment enough.”

You didn’t give enough information to make that decision. If they made $200 million that they don’t have to give back, well… I don’t think that’s NEARLY punishmnt enough. 6-18 months in (a rich-person’s) jail, then I get to retire with $200million+? Sounds good to me!

“But the possibility of huge fines deters businesses from ever entering into cartels, and encourages them to put practices in place to prevent their executives from entering into illegal agreements.”

The proper thing to do is punish the offender. Look at the incentives givn to the PEOPLE – if I do somthing illegal to make myself a lot of money, and the company has to pick up the tab (govrnment fines), what, exactly, is my dis-incentive to do the illegal act? Fines against the companies in question are almost totally a loss and a waste. Increase the punishment to the individuals who committed the act.

Unless of course the anticompetitive conditions were established by the government, in which case you can expect them to be coming after you for trying to be competitive. (see the recent story out of the dairy industry)

few examples:

You say criminal antitrust law cannot be a deterrent because “Criminal enforcement can only punish individuals and corporations for past conduct.”

That is true for ALL crimes, not just antitrust violations. Punishing past crimes is the only way that any law can deter future crime.

“And given the DOJ’s admission that it just collected a near-record level of fines—indicating it has brought more criminal cases—it’s difficult to argue that criminal enforcement deters future cartels.”

The evidence that the current level of antitrust enforcement is effective will come in 5-10 years, which is about how long it takes to uncover and prosecute a cartel. The cartels being prosecuted now were hatched as early as 1990. By your faulty logic, if there are a record number of murder prosecutions in a year “it’s difficult to argue that criminal enforcement deters future murders.” Obviously the correct question is, how many cartels (or murders) would there be in the absence of any enforcement.

“Indeed, criminal enforcement is a poor deterrence mechanism, because the most severe fines are paid by the corporation (the shareholders) rather than the individual executives involved in the conspiracy.”

Another bizarre claim. Of course businesses will face larger fines that executives, as few executives will be able to pay $800 million penalties. But the possibility of huge fines deters businesses from ever entering into cartels, and encourages them to put practices in place to prevent their executives from entering into illegal agreements. I don’t why that simple concept is so hard for you to grasp.

Furthermore, your arguments that executives are not adequately deterred is also laughable. The Samsung and Beyer executives who led recent cartels went to jail for 6 to 18 months, and had their careers ruined by their lawbreaking. You are pretty heatless if you think that isn’t punishment enough.

“Second, prosecutors almost never look at other factors that influenced past pricing decisions, since they treat collusion as per se illegal.”

You clearly don’t even understand the basics of antitrust law if you would make a statement.

Private price-fixing suits usually only commence after criminal suits have been launched. It will be at that point that in order to recover it must be proved the companies raised prices illegally. There will be no recovery if there was an illegal conspiracy to raise prices, but the conspiracy was ineffective.