VoluntaryTrade.org

Ice is more then frozen water. It’s the centerpiece of the antitrust community’s latest assault on the market. The Department of Justice announced today that one of the largest sellers of packaged ice has pleaded guilty to “conspiracy” in connection with a criminal antitrust investigation of the industry. Class action lawyers are not far behind, using earlier reports of the DOJ and FBI’s investigation to file civil complaints against a number of packaged ice companies.

Class-action attorneys Melvyn Weiss and William Lerach were recently sentenced to prison because they paid "kickbacks" to lead plaintiffs in class actions where Weiss or Lerach's firm served as lead counsel. Tort reform advocates applauded the Department of Justice, which prosecuted Weiss and Lerach, for standing up against the abusive practices of the civil plaintiff's bar. But while the two lawyers languish in prison, the DOJ's Antitrust Division continues to operate its own kickback scheme free from the prying eyes of the courts and the general public.

Federal Trade Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch vowed to stay on as trial judge in the FTC's administrative case against the Inova Health System-Prince William Health System (PWHS) merger, despite new allegations from the hospitals' lawyers--which includes a former FTC chairman--that Rosch "participated in the underlying two-year investigation that preceded the filing of the complaint."

The Voluntary Trade Council has published an updated chart of adjudicated decisions in Federal Trade Commission cases since 1996. The chart tracks initial decisions made by the FTC's administrative law judges, the final decisions made by the FTC and the results of any appeals to the Article III courts.