Minnesota man, corporation indicted for Amazon price fixing conspiracy

Listen to this article

A Hayfield, Minnesota, man has been indicted for participating in a conspiracy to fix prices of DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs sold on Amazon Marketplace. Bruce Fish, alongside BDF Enterprises Inc., a Minnesota corporation, were charged with one-count felonies by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

A federal grand jury in Knoxville, Tennessee, returned an indictment charging another individual and three other companies in addition to Fish and BDF Enterprises. The price-fixing conspiracy was ongoing from at least as early as Oct. 2016 until at least Oct. 29, 2019.

The Antitrust Division’s Chicago Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Tennessee are prosecuting the case, which was investigated with the assistance of the FBI’s New York Field Office and the USPS-OIG’s Contract Fraud Investigations Division.

Four other individuals have been previously charged and pleaded guilty in this ongoing investigation.

“This indictment – the fifth charge to date in the ongoing investigation – demonstrates our commitment to protecting consumers and prosecuting individuals who conspire to fix prices in online marketplaces,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division in a news release.

A criminal violation of the Sherman Act carries a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million criminal fine for individuals, and a $100 million fine for corporations. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is greater than the statutory maximum fine. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.