Source: http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f213900/213918.htm
Timestamp: 2013-12-12 12:24:38
Document Index: 663219257

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 16', '§ 1', '§ 16', '§ 16', '§ 16', '§ 16', '§\n16', '§ 16']

United States' Motion, With Supporting Memorandum, For Entry of Final Judgment : U.S. v. Eastern Mushroom Marketing
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. EASTERN MUSHROOM MARKETING COOPERATIVE, INC.
| CIVIL CASE NO.: 04-CV-5829 JUDGE: Thomas N. O'Neill, Jr. UNITED STATES' MOTION, WITH SUPPORTING MEMORANDUM,
FOR ENTRY OF FINAL JUDGMENT Pursuant to Section 2(b) of the Antitrust Procedures and penalties Act ("APPA"),
15 U.S.C. §§ 16 (b)-(h), the Plaintiff, United States of America ("United States"), moves
for entry of the attached proposed Final Judgment in this civil antitrust proceeding. The
Final Judgment may be entered at this time without further hearing if the Court
determines that entry is in the public interest. The Competitive Impact Statement
("CIS") filed in this matter on December 16, 2004, explains why entry of the proposed
Final Judgment would be in the public interest. The United States is filing
simultaneously with this Motion a Certificate of Compliance setting forth the steps taken
by the parties to comply with all applicable provisions of the APPA and certifying that
the statutory waiting period has expired.
On December 16, 2004, the United States filed a civil antitrust Complaint alleging
that the Defendant, the Eastern Mushroom Marketing Cooperative, Inc. ("EMMC"), had
violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. The EMMC is made up of
entities that grow, buy, package, and ship mushrooms to retail and food service outlets
across the United States. EMMC began operations in January 2001 and, at the time of
the filing of the Complaint, had approximately 15 members. EMMC sets the minimum
prices at which its members sell their mushrooms to customers in various geographic
regions throughout the United States and publishes those prices regularly. The Complaint alleges that, in order to support its price increases, the EMMC
collectively purchased or entered lease options on mushroom farms and thereafter shut
them down, adding deed restrictions that permanently removed significant production
capacity from the market. With the Complaint, the United States and the EMMC filed
an agreed-upon proposed Final Judgment that requires the EMMC to eliminate the
deed restrictions from all the properties it shut down. Under the proposed Final Judgment, the EMMC is required to file nullifying
documents in each jurisdiction where it has filed any "Mushroom Deed Restrictions," as
defined in the Final Judgment. The EMMC is also prohibited from creating, filing, or
enforcing any Mushroom Deed Restrictions with respect to any real property in which
the cooperative has an ownership or leasehold interest of any kind.
The United States and the EMMC agreed that the proposed Final Judgment
could be entered after compliance with the APPA. Entry of the Final Judgment would
terminate the action, except that the Court would retain jurisdiction to construe, modify,
or enforce the Final Judgment's provisions and to punish violations thereof.
The APPA requires a sixty-day period for the submission of public comments on
the proposed Final Judgment. 15 U.S.C. § 16 (b). In compliance with the APPA, the
Unites States filed a CIS on December 16, 2004. The United States published the
proposed Final Judgment and the CIS in the Federal Register on February 10, 2005; in
The Washington Post during the period February 5, 2005, through February 11, 2005;
and in The Philadelphia Inquirer during the period February 28, 2005, through March 6,
2005. The comment period expired on May 5, 2005. The United States received one
anonymous comment from the public. The United States filed its Response to Public
Comment and the public comment with this Court on June 29, 2005, and published the
Response and the public comment in the Federal Register on July 7, 2005. The
Certificate of Compliance filed simultaneously with this Motion recites that all the
requirements of the APPA have now been satisfied. It is therefore appropriate for the
Court to make the public interest determination required by 15 U.S.C. § 16 (e) and to
enter the Final Judgment.
The APPA requires that proposed consent judgments in antitrust cases brought
by the United States be subject to a 60-day comment period, after which the Court shall
determine whether entry of the proposed Final Judgment "is in the public interest." 15
U.S.C. § 16(e)(1). In making that determination, the Court shall consider:
of alleged violations, provisions for enforcement and modification, duration of relief sought, anticipated effects of alternative remedies
15 U.S.C. § 16(e)(1)(A) and (B). As the United States Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit has held, the APPA permits a court to consider, among other
things, the relationship between the remedy secured and the specific allegations set
enforcement mechanisms are sufficient, and whether the decree may positively harm
third parties. See United States v. Microsoft Corp., 56 F.3d 1448, 1458-62 (D.C. Cir.
1995). "Nothing in this section shall be construed to require the court to conduct an
evidentiary hearing or to require the court to permit anyone to intervene." 15 U.S.C. §
16(e)(2). Thus, in conducting this inquiry, "[t]he court is nowhere compelled to go to
trial or to engage in extended proceedings which might have the effect of vitiating the
benefits of prompt and less costly settlement through the consent decree process." 119 Cong. Rec. 24,598 (1973) (statement of Senator Tunney).(1) Rather:
[a]bsent a showing of corrupt failure of the government to discharge its duty, the Court, in making its public interest finding, should . . . carefully consider the explanations of the government in the competitive impact statement and its responses to comments in order to determine whether those explanations are reasonable under the circumstances. United States v. Mid-America Dairymen, Inc., 1977-1 Trade Cas. (CCH) ¶ 61,508, at
71,980 (W.D. Mo. 1977).
Accordingly, with respect to the adequacy of the relief secured by the decree, a
court may not "engage in an unrestricted evaluation of what relief would best serve the
public." United States v. BNS, Inc., 858 F.2d 456, 462 (9th Cir. 1988) (citing United States
v. Bechtel Corp., 648 F.2d 660, 666 (9th Cir. 1981)); see also Microsoft, 56 F.3d at
1460-62. Courts have held that:
acceptability or is 'within the reaches of public interest.'" United States v. AT&T, 552 F.
Supp. 131, 151 (D.D.C. 1982) (citations omitted) (quoting Gillette, 406 F. Supp. at 716),
aff'd sub nom. Maryland v. United States, 460 U.S. 1001 (1983); see also United States
v. Alcan Aluminum Ltd., 605 F. Supp. 619, 622 (W.D. Ky. 1985) (approving the consent
Moreover, the Court's role under the APPA is limited to reviewing the remedy in relationship to the violations that the United States has alleged in its Complaint; the APPA
does not authorize the Court to "construct [its] own hypothetical case and then evaluate
the decree against that case." Microsoft, 56 F.3d at 1459. Because the "court's authority
to review the decree depends entirely on the government's exercising its prosecutorial
discretion by bringing a case in the first place," it follows that "the court is only authorized
to review the decree itself," and not to "effectively redraft the complaint" to inquire into
other matters that the United States did not pursue. Id. at 1459-60. IV.	Conclusion.
For the reasons set forth in this Motion and in the CIS, the United States respectfully
requests that the Court find that the proposed Final Judgment is in the public interest and
enter the proposed Final Judgment without further hearings. Dated this 24th day of August, 2005.
C. Alexander Hewes Tracey D. Chambers David McDowell Trial Attorneys U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division
Transportation, Energy & Agriculture Section 325 7th Street, NW; Suite 500 Washington, D.C. 20530 Telephone: (202) 305-8519 _______________/s/________________
Laura Heiser Anne Spiegelman Trial Attorneys Antitrust Division, Philadelphia Field Office CERTIFICATE PURSUANT TO LOCAL RULE 7.1 (b)
The foregoing Motion, with Supporting Memorandum, for Entry of Final Judgment is uncontested. _______________/s/________________
Laura Heiser FOOTNOTES
1. See United States v. Gillette Co., 406 F. Supp. 713, 716 (D. Mass. 1975)
(recognizing it was not the court's duty to settle; rather, the court must only answer
"whether the settlement achieved [was] within the reaches of the public interest"). A
Impact Statement and Response to Comments filed by the Department of Justice
pursuant to the APPA. Although the APPA authorizes the use of additional procedures,
15 U.S.C. § 16(f), those procedures are discretionary. A court need not invoke any of
them unless it believes that the comments have raised significant issues and that
further proceedings would aid the court in resolving those issues. See H.R. Rep. No.
93-1463, 93rd Cong., 2d Sess. 8-9 (1974), reprinted in 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6535, 6538.
2. Cf. BNS, 858 F.2d at 464 (holding that the court's "ultimate authority under the
[APPA] is limited to approving or disapproving the consent decree"); Gillette, 406 F.
Supp. at 716 (noting that, in this way, the court is constrained to "look at the overall
picture not hypercritically, nor with a microscope, but with an artist's reducing glass"). See generally Microsoft, 56 F.3d at 1461 (discussing whether "the remedies [obtained
in the decree are] so inconsonant with the allegations charged as to fall outside of the
'reaches of the public interest'").