by John Terzaken, Abram Ellis, and Elizabeth French
On April 4, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (the “Division”) announced important clarifications and modifications to its Corporate and Individual Leniency Policies (the “Leniency Program”) in the form of revised Frequently Asked Questions about the Antitrust Division’s Leniency Program (“FAQs”).[1] The Leniency Program is unique to the Division and provides for immunity for companies and individuals who are first to self-report criminal antitrust violations—price-fixing, bid-rigging and market/customer allocation agreements among competing companies (so called “antitrust cartels”). For the last thirty years, the Leniency Program has remained a mainstay of the Division’s anti-cartel enforcement efforts, touted by the Division as its most effective tool for destabilizing and rooting out otherwise clandestine antitrust cartels. The success of the Division’s Leniency Program has led countries around the world to adopt similar programs to combat antitrust cartels within their jurisdictions.