Word: citric
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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After years of denying any wrongdoing, the company pleaded guilty to conspiring to fix prices for the livestock feed-supplement lysine and for citric acid, an additive found in products from cosmetics to soft drinks. The $100 million fine, the largest ever levied in a criminal antitrust case, was more than six times the amount of the previous record settlement. Further, ADM will pay an additional $90 million to settle civil suits. "In essence, greed, simple greed, replaced any sense of corporate decency or integrity" at ADM, said Joel Klein, the acting Assistant Attorney General for antitrust...
...plea bargain turned ADM (1995 sales: $12.7 billion) into an informer for the government. In exchange for immunity, company officials agreed to become witnesses against other firms under investigation for conspiring with ADM to rig prices in the $1.2 billion citric-acid market...
Importantly, the Justice Department will not pursue a potentially larger case against ADM for fixing prices in the market for high-fructose corn syrup, a ubiquitous soft-drink sweetener. This $4 billion industry is nearly four times the size of citric acid, and some consumer advocates have charged that shoppers pay higher prices for soda because of ADM's practices...
...Archer Daniels Midland agreed to plead guilty Monday to two criminal price-fixing charges and will pay $100 million in fines. The agribusiness giant had been the target of a four-year long federal investigation into price-fixing in the sale of lysine, a feed supplement for livestock, and citric acid, which is used in soft drinks and detergents. In exchange for the plea agreement, ADM gains immunity against charges of alleged collusion in the sale of high-fructose corn syrup, according to reports the Wall Street Journal. The corn-syrup case was thought to be the most significant...
...recent weeks, the grand jury has subpoenaed possible evidence of collusion from agribusiness behemoths Cargill, CPC International and A.E. Staley. The products in question: high-fructose corn syrup, a sweetener found in everything from Coca-Cola to cake; lysine, an amino acid used in feeding poultry and hogs; and citric acid, which adds tartness to jams and jellies, among many other uses. Some experts speculated that investigators are focusing on the possibility that ADM set predatory--meaning artificially low--prices on lysine, which Whitacre's BioProducts Division produces. That might help explain how ADM grabbed a 50% share...