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Corporate antitrust prosecutions: Prosecutorial decision making in the assessment of total monetary penalties

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Claire Nolasco at Texas A&M University – San Antonio
Claire Nolasco
Lily Chi-Fang Tsai
Lily Chi-Fang Tsai
Lily Chi-Fang Tsai
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Abstract

Our study analyzes data from the Corporate Prosecution Registry of the University of Virginia School of Law and Duke University School of Law (Garrett and Ashley, 2023). We examine a subset of corporate violators, namely prosecutions brought under the Sherman Antitrust Act’s criminal provisions. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is a federal statute that prohibits activities that restrict interstate commerce and competition in the marketplace. We utilize the framework of bounded rationality of decision making to hypothesize that prosecutors are influenced by internal and external factors that affect the total monetary penalties ultimately levied on corporate violators of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law’s criminal provisions. Specifically, our results indicate that corporate monetary penalties for antitrust corporate offenders are significantly more likely to be lower when the corporate defendant entered into disposition agreements (such as non-prosecution agreements, deferred prosecution agreements, and plea agreements) with the prosecutor and is a company incorporated and registered under U.S. laws. On the other hand, the total monetary penalties imposed on corporate defendants are more likely to be higher when the defendant is a financial institution, a public company, or a Fortune 500 company.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Crime, Law and Social Change (2024) 82:69–93
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-023-10136-4
1 3
Corporate antitrust prosecutions: Prosecutorial decision
making intheassessment oftotal monetary penalties
ClaireNolascoBraaten1 · LilyChi‑FangTsai2
Accepted: 9 December 2023 / Published online: 27 December 2023
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023
Abstract
Our study analyzes data from the Corporate Prosecution Registry of the University
of Virginia School of Law and Duke University School of Law (Garrett and Ash-
ley, 2023). We examine a subset of corporate violators, namely prosecutions brought
under the Sherman Antitrust Act’s criminal provisions. The Sherman Antitrust Act
of 1890 is a federal statute that prohibits activities that restrict interstate commerce
and competition in the marketplace. We utilize the framework of bounded rational-
ity of decision making to hypothesize that prosecutors are influenced by internal and
external factors that affect the total monetary penalties ultimately levied on corpo-
rate violators of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law’s criminal provisions. Specifically, our
results indicate that corporate monetary penalties for antitrust corporate offenders
are significantly more likely to be lower when the corporate defendant entered into
disposition agreements (such as non-prosecution agreements, deferred prosecution
agreements, and plea agreements) with the prosecutor and is a company incorpo-
rated and registered under U.S. laws. On the other hand, the total monetary penalties
imposed on corporate defendants are more likely to be higher when the defendant is
a financial institution, a public company, or a Fortune 500 company.
Keywords Bounded rationality· Prosecutorial decision making· Monetary
penalties· Financial institutions· White collar crime· Decision making model·
Sherman Act· Antitrust violations
* Claire Nolasco Braaten
cnolasco@tamusa.edu; claire.braaten@tamusa.edu
Lily Chi-Fang Tsai
Ltsai@umes.edu
1 Department ofCriminology andPolitical Science, College ofArts andSciences, Texas A&M-
San Antonio, One University Way, SanAntonio, TX78224, USA
2 Department ofCriminal Justice, University ofMaryland Eastern Shore, 1 College Backbone
Road, PrincessAnne, MD21853, USA
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
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