NCJ Number
77777
Date Published
Unknown
Length
20 pages
Annotation
Based on data provided by the Department of Justice and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Court, this report presents statistics on two groups of criminal price-fixing cases occurring between January 1972 and January 1979--those that had subsequent or parallel class actions files and those that did not.
Abstract
A table first summarizes all cases according to the following characteristics: percentage of nolo contenderes, average duration of criminal proceedings, average fine, average number of defendant firms, average annual sales volume, average population of geographical area served, sales per capita, and sales per charged firm. These characteristics are then tabulated for criminal price-fixing cases that were accompanied by filed or reported class action litigation. Finally, percentages of class actions and no class actions are provided for selected categories of plaintiffs and defendants. An analysis of the differences between price-fixing cases that are followed by class actions and those that are not concludes that cases against firms with high sales volume, sales per capita, and sales per charged firm tend to have class action lawsuits. Almost 70 percent of all defendants in class actions were classifed as manufacturers. The reporting of a class action seems to have a positive relationship to the size of the affected class. The appendixes list all defendants in criminal price-fixing cases between 1972 and 1978, along with the specific product involved, the year of the lawsuit, and whether or not a class action was filed or reported.