Ick, Monn indicted by US Federal Grand Jury on price-fixing charges

Washington DC -- Former Bayer employees, Jürgen Ick and Günter Monn, have been indictedby a US federal grand jury for participating in an international price-fixing conspiracy in the rubber chemicals industry, the Department of Justice announced.

In separate indictments, filed in US District Court in San Francisco, the grand jury charged Ick and Monn with conspiring with other corporate and individual co-conspirators to suppress competition by fixing the prices of rubber chemicals sold in the United States and elsewhere. Ick, former head of Bayer's Rubber Business Group, was charged with participating in the conspiracy from 1995 to 2001. Monn, former head of marketing of Bayer's Rubber Business Group, was charged with joining the conspiracy in or about January 1997. Both Ick and Monn are German citizens.

"Anyone who participates in these type of international conspiracies that defraud Americans millions of dollars faces great risk of being caught and prosecuted, no matter where they are located or where they commit their crime," said Thomas O. Barnett, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department's Antitrust Division, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice.

Ick and Monn were charged with violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which carries a maximum penalty for violations occurring prior to June 22, 2003 of three years imprisonment and a $350,000 fine for individuals. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain the conspirators derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is greater than the statutory maximum fine.

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Press release from the Dept of Justice

Story from Washington Times (US)