Business Litigation Report - August 2015

Extradition for U.S. Antitrust Crimes: An Anomaly or the New Normal? -

In April 2014, Germany extradited Romano Pisciotti, an Italian national, to the United States to face criminal charges related to his alleged participation in an international cartel in the marine hose industry. (Press Release, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, First Ever Extradition on an Antitrust Charge (Apr. 4, 2014) (“April 4 Press Release”).) Mr. Pisciotti’s extradition represented the first time that the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) had obtained the extradition of a foreign national solely based on antitrust charges. (Id.) It was clearly a landmark achievement for the DOJ. In his May 2015 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Bill Baer, took a firm stance: “Foreign nationals do not escape responsibility when they conspire to injure American consumers from afar. We prosecute foreign companies and their executives, and seek extradition of foreign nationals who attempt to evade the jurisdiction of the U.S. courts.” (Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer’s Prepared Remarks Before the United States House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Laws (May 15, 2015).)

But more than one year after Mr. Pisciotti’s extradition, it remains unclear whether those proceedings were a watershed moment in extraterritorial U.S. antitrust enforcement or just an anomaly.