I just finished reading Kurt Eichenwald’s amazing book The Informant, about the antitrust investigateion of Archer Daniels Midland for price-fixing in the 1990s and Mark Whitacre, the ADM senior executive who agreed to cooperate and even to record conversations with other members of the global conspiracy.
Wow–what a great read! Certainly one of the best books I’ve ever read on a legal subject and especially interesting for those of us who work on antitrust and competition law issues.
I know the book is a few years old but I just finally got around to it now. A few years back I gave a speech at a Japanese Fair Trade Commission conference where Scott Hammond of the DOJ also spoke. He showed some of the videotapes from the investigation. Here’s another version of Hammond’s speech that contains links to various excerpts from the transcripts of the video and audio tapes recorded by “the informant” Mark Whitacre. The transcripts make for interesting reading.
Does anyone know if the lysine price-fixing videotapes are available on-line anywhere?
Update:
Josh Wright has the address at DOJ to contact if you want copies of the videotapes.
Update:
A Commenter points me to this Wikipedia page that provides an update on some of the figures in the book as well as some controversies about the author, the book, and some of the claims in it. Very interesting. Whitacre is now out of prison and a senior executive at a California biotech company.