Antitrust — foreign cartels

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Antitrust — foreign cartels

A complaint alleging that foreign companies formed a cartel, and sold goods in the United States, states a claim for relief.

“Foreign cartels, especially those over natural resources that are scarce in the United States and that are traded in a unified international market, have often been the target of either governmental or private litigation. The host country for the cartel will often have no incentive to prosecute it. Canada and Russia, here (just like California in Parker), would logically be pleased to reap economic rents from other countries; their losses from higher prices for the potash used in their own fertilizers are more than made up by the gains from the cartel price their exporters collect. Export cartels are often exempt from a country’s antitrust laws: the United States does just that, through its Webb-Pomerene Associations, see 15 U.S.C. §§ 61 et seq., and Export Trading Companies, see 15 U.S.C. §§ 4001 et seq. This case is actually the mirror image of the situation described in Empagran, where the foreign country whose consumers are hurt would have been the better enforcer. It is the U.S. authorities or private plaintiffs who have the incentive—and the right—to complain about overcharges paid as a result of the potash cartel, and whose interests will be sacrificed if the law is interpreted not to permit this kind of case.”

Affirmed.

10-1712 Minn-Chem, Inc., v. Agrium, Inc.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Castillo, J., Wood, J.