Analysis Group Recognized by Global Competition Review’s 2023 Awards for Economic Analysis in Antitrust Litigation

April 20, 2023

Analysis Group is honored to have been recognized for its work on US v. Penn, et al., which was awarded “Behavioural Matter of the Year – Americas” by Global Competition Review’s (GCR’s) 2023 antitrust awards. This year’s awards were announced in March to recognize “creative, strategic, and innovative work by teams of in-house and external lawyers and economists.”

In Penn, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) had alleged that the defendants engaged in an agreement to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chickens between 2012 and 2019. The DOJ charged the defendants with a criminal violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act for an alleged conspiracy to restrain trade. Following a hung jury in two prior trials, the DOJ took the unprecedented step of trying the case a third time.

An Analysis Group team led by Managing Principal Andrea Okie, Principal Mark Lewis, and Vice Presidents Kevin Gallagher, Ishita Rajani, and David Smith supported academic affiliate Professor Edward Snyder in preparing testimony for all three trials. In his testimony on the existence of economic evidence consistent with a price-fixing agreement during the third trial, Professor Snyder showed that exchanges of information are expected in the broiler chicken industry and do not necessarily indicate a conspiracy. He also showed that the at-issue prices were not systematically higher than a set of benchmark prices analyzed for the case.

After two mistrials, the jury found all five executives charged in the third trial not guilty. The DOJ also subsequently dropped its charges against four other executives in a related matter before the federal criminal trial was set to begin.