Brent Snyder, the Antitrust Division’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Enforcement, made extended remarks today at the Yale Global Antitrust Enforcement Conference (here). Mr. Snyder emphasized that the Division has long believed, and acted on this belief, that holding individuals accountable for antitrust crimes was both appropriate and the best means of deterrence:

This emphasis on individual accountability is fundamental to Antitrust Division prosecutors. The division has long touted prison time for individuals as the single most effective deterrent to the “temptation to cheat the system and profit from collusion.” My predecessors ensured that this message was often repeated. To quote just one of them, Scott Hammond said that “[i]t is indisputable that the most effective deterrent to cartel offenses is to impose jail sentences on the individuals who commit them.”

Mr. Snyder also made the first remarks (I believe) on how the September 9, 2015 Yates memorandum (here) has affected Antitrust Division practices:

Our record with respect to individual accountability speaks for itself. But we are embracing the Deputy Attorney General’s directive to do even better. We have adopted new internal procedures to ensure that each of our criminal offices systematically identifies all potentially culpable individuals as early in the investigative process as feasible and that we bring cases against individuals as quickly as evidentiary sufficiency permits to minimize the risk that cases will be time-barred or that evidence will become stale from the passage of time. We are also undertaking a more comprehensive review of the organizational structure of culpable companies to ensure that we are identifying and investigating all senior executives who potentially condoned, directed, or participated in the criminal conduct.

It will be interesting to see how/if the Yates memo affects Division prosecution decisions in regard to how far down the cartel bench in a given company the Division may go to hold individuals accountable. After all, many cartels, particularly international cartels, can involve many employees (and former employees) of a firm.

It will also be interesting to see if the new policy memo has any effect on the Division’s Corporate Leniency Program. It can be argued that granting leniency to all culpable current employees of the leniency applicant is inconsistent with the Yates memo if the necessary cooperation could be gained at a lower cost. That may be a  topic covered in an upcoming ABA program: The DOJ Amnesty Program After The Yates Memo (here).

Thanks for reading.