If, like me, you have ever spoken to someone that faces criminal indictment by a federal grand jury following a Justice Department antitrust investigation, you know why antitrust compliance counseling and training is a big deal—you don’t need reasons; hearing the crackle of the voice is enough to understand.

You might think that an antitrust investigation or lawsuit may not happen to you or your company. Perhaps you think that your company is too small or that since you don’t sit in smoke-filled rooms with many of your competitors laughing about your customers—or whatever image from books or movies is in your head, antitrust isn’t something you need to worry about.

You might be wrong. Are the chances great that you will be prosecuted or sued under the antitrust laws? Since you are reading a blog about antitrust, they are greater than average, but even still, the odds are relatively low.

But even if the likelihood of an adverse antitrust event is low, the consequences may be so extreme that it is something you should think about. You don’t anticipate that your house is going to burn down, but you—hopefully—take some precautions and probably have some sort of fire protection as part of your homeowner’s insurance.

With antitrust, a little knowledge can go a long way.

If you have an antitrust issue, it is not likely to be a small issue. Indeed, it may start with a government investigation, but could progress into dozens of antitrust class actions against your company.

As you might know, there is a cottage industry of plaintiff attorneys that read SEC filings and watch for government antitrust investigations. When they see something that raises the possibility of an antitrust violation, they pounce. Attorneys all over the country file lawsuits in their home jurisdictions against the target company—which could be your company if you aren’t careful. I go into more detail about this “antitrust blizzard” here.

Antitrust issues can arise for big and small companies and even individuals—like real-estate investors. If you don’t think your company is susceptible to antitrust liability or indictment, I’d like you to read one of my early blog posts that explains how easily a per se antitrust violation can happen.

The Federal Trade Commission even went after an association of music teachers for potentially violating the antitrust laws.

What is tough about antitrust is that the laws are not always intuitive; it isn’t like a law that says “don’t steal.” In fact, in one instance, the antitrust laws encourage you to try to steal.

Sometimes the law isn’t even altogether clear. Of course, you are unlikely to face criminal indictment over complicated questions of whether a bundle of products sold by a company with market power violates the antitrust laws. Or whether your vertical pricing arrangements went beyond Colgate policy protections. But you could face criminal antitrust penalties for allocating markets and customers and that isn’t obvious to all sales people.

The bottom line is that if you run or help to manage a company—and especially if your company has a sales team—you need some knowledge of the antitrust laws. At the very least, you should understand what to train your team members to avoid. Antitrust training can be invaluable.

 

Offensive Use of Antitrust Laws

But it isn’t just about avoiding the downside—there is an upside too. If your competitors or suppliers or even customers are violating the antitrust laws, a little bit of knowledge will help you understand when an antitrust attorney might be able to help you. You might start by reviewing our article on ten ways to tell whether you have an antitrust claim.

If you suspect that someone you are dealing with might be engaging in anticompetitive conduct, you should work with an antitrust lawyer to investigate further and decide how to act.

Antitrust-Compliance Training

But where can you find antitrust-compliance training? Certainly, we at Bona Law can help you and your team understand the antitrust laws and can help you create a company antitrust policy.

But there is another excellent option for an antitrust compliance training course that you can add to your other compliance training: Emtrain.

I am excited to announce that I have teamed up with my friend Robert Connolly, who has an excellent blog called Cartel Capers, to work with Emtrain to create an antitrust compliance course.

As you might know, Emtrain offers a wide-variety of legal compliance training in topics ranging from workplace issues to insider trading to motivating your employees to (now) antitrust and competition issues. Bob Connolly and I are the designated antitrust experts for Emtrain and helped to create the course.

If you are interested in their antitrust (or any other) compliance training, you should contact them.

photo credit: ccPixs.com Monopoly In Jail via photopin (license)

Update: We’ve added the Emtrain sample videos for their antitrust compliance training.