CRESCE A VIOLÊNCIA!

THE TOP 100 CORPORATE CRIMINALS OF THE 1990's

1) F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $500 million
12 Corporate Crime Reporter 21(1), May 24, 1999


The Swiss pharmaceutical giant, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., pled guilty and agreed to pay a record $500 million criminal fine for leading a worldwide conspiracy to raise and fix prices and allocate market shares for certain vitamins sold in the United States and elsewhere.

In Dallas, the Department of Justice charged the company with conspiring to fix, raise, and maintain prices, and allocate the sales volumes of vitamins sold by them and other unnamed co-conspirator companies in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Federal officials also allege that the company allocated contracts for vitamin premixes for customers throughout the U.S. and rigged the bids for those contracts.

The conspiracy lasted from January 1990 into February 1999 and affected the vitamins most commonly used as nutritional supplements or to enrich human food and animal feed -- vitamins A, B 2, B5, C, E, and Beta Carotene.

Vitamin premixes, which are used to enrich breakfast cereals and numerous other processed foods were also affected by the conspiracy, the Department said.