due process in competition · pdf filethe process or proceedings may be ... 78% of individuals...
TRANSCRIPT
1
Keynote Address by
Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit
Due Process in
Competition Proceedings
International Competition Network
Roundtable on Investigative Process
March 25, 2014
Washington D.C.
Copyright by the author (2014)
Used by permission
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“A precise definition has never been attempted. It does not always
mean proceedings in court. Its fundamental requirement is an
opportunity for a hearing and defense, but no fixed procedure is
demanded. The process or proceedings may be adapted to the nature
of the case.” Ballard v. Hunter, 204 U.S. 241, 255 (1907).
Defining Due Process
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“The extent to which procedural due process must be afforded the
recipient is influenced by the extent to which he may be condemned to
suffer grievous loss.” Goldberg v. Kelley, 397 U.S. 254, 263 (1970).
Does an antitrust case threaten “grievous loss”? Sometimes yes,
sometimes no.
The Stakes for Antitrust
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Criminal Actions – high stakes, therefore more process is due.
In the United States, corporate fines are breaking records and for
individuals jail time is increasingly likely. For example:
Defendants in the DoJ’s auto parts cartel case have agreed to pay $1.6 billion in
criminal fines.
The DoJ won a criminal verdict of $500 million against AU Optronics in the LCD
panel cartel case
78% of individuals sentenced in DoJ cases received jail time in Fiscal Year 2012.
The average prison sentence was 25 months.
Criminal sanctions are now available in many countries.
The Stakes for Antitrust
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Civil Actions – if the stakes are very high, why should procedures be any fewer?
Civil fines rival criminal fines.
The EC fined seven cathode ray tube companies € 1.47 billion in 2012.
As noted by the ECJ in the Schindler elevator cartel case: “[I]n its judgment in A. Menarini
Diagnostics v. Italy, relating to a penalty imposed by the Italian competition authority ..., the
European Court of Human Rights considered that, given that the fine imposed was high [€6
million], the penalty, because of its severity, fell within the criminal sphere.”
In R. v. Wigglesworth, the Supreme Court of Canada held where a conviction could result in
a fine that “by its magnitude would appear to be imposed for the purpose of redressing a
wrong due to society at large,” the proceeding would be subject to § 11 of the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which deals with fundamental fairness.
Reputational damage to individuals as well as to companies can be significant.
As the U.S. Supreme Court observed in Roth, more process is due when government action
“impose[s] upon [an individual] a stigma or other disability that foreclose[s] his freedom to
take advantage of other employment opportunities.” 408 U.S. 564, 572 (1972).
Human capital built up over decades is destroyed in an instant if the consequence of an
infringement decision is to make a person unemployable in his field of endeavor.
The Stakes for Antitrust
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Civil Actions – if the stakes are very high, why should procedures be any fewer?
Private plaintiffs – increasingly via class actions – will follow public cases.
After the civil judgment in the DoJ’s Microsoft case, the company faced follow-on suits from
Sun Microsystems and more than 60 other plaintiffs.
Even after the DoJ had dropped its investigation of Dow Chemical and other alleged
members of a cartel, a class action suit went ahead and last year the plaintiffs won $1.2
billion in damages.
Other jurisdictions could follow on with their own actions.
There are now at least 115 jurisdictions worldwide.
Many of them could impose significant sanctions, including some criminal sanctions for
individuals.
Why should any lesser process be used because a case is brought before an
administrative agency?
The Stakes for Antitrust
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Delay
Hearing Before the Actual Decision Maker
Neutral Decision Maker
Right to Confront Evidence
Reasoned Decision Based Solely upon the Evidence
Review by an Independent Tribunal
Six Due Process Concerns to Consider
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Justice delayed is indeed justice denied.
Speedy Trial Clause of the U.S. Constitution applies in criminal cases.
But the U.S. Supreme Court has also held “due process” forbids
“oppressive delay” in getting to a final resolution, United States v. Lovasco,
431 U.S. 783, 789 (1977), and “due process” applies, mutatis mutandis, to
civil cases as well.
Consequences of delay in resolving an antitrust investigation:
Making a merger economically non-viable; parties cannot put a deal on hold
for a year or more while an agency evaluates it.
Individuals kept under the specter of investigation find their lives and
careers are disrupted.
Judicial review becomes an empty promise.
Delay
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“The fundamental requirement of due process is the opportunity to be
heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.” Mathews v.
Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 333 (1976).
Hearing Before the Actual Decision Maker
“Have you tried removing the blindfold?”
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Has the decision maker him or her self heard the evidence? Read the
testimony? Or is the decision maker just a bureaucrat stamping
“Approved” on a decision in reality made by someone else? Would you tolerate that from a court? Imagine a judge who doesn’t attend a hearing or
read the pleadings but lets his assistant recount the evidence in a memorandum.
Imagine yourself a party: your company, your reputation, perhaps your career are at
stake.
Is it enough to review the cold, written record or must the decision
maker be present to judge the credibility of witnesses and experts? For example, when a case is heard in the first instance by an Administrative Law Judge
(ALJ) and then appealed to the FTC, the Commissioners have not heard the evidence
as it was presented, and yet they are charged by statute [APA § 557(b)] to review the
ALJ’s findings of fact de novo.
Former Commissioner Rosch expressed his doubt about this arrangement in remarks
before the Antitrust Section of the ABA at its Fall Forum in 2012, saying, “I am
squeamish about second-guessing an ALJ’s findings of fact, especially when they are
based on the credibility of witnesses.”
Hearing Before the Actual Decision Maker
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“[I]t certainly deprives a defendant in a criminal case of due process of law to
subject his liberty or property to the judgment of a court, the judge of which has a
direct, personal, substantial pecuniary interest in reaching a conclusion against
him.” Tumey v. State of Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 523 (1927).
That case involved a small-town mayor who got $12 in court costs and fees if he
found the defendant guilty, but not otherwise.
Neutral Decision Maker
Are institutions different from individuals
with respect to incentives?
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Does the competition agency keep the fines it imposes? Then the decision
maker is hardly neutral.
Even if not, why should it brag about how much it collected for the government?
The Antitrust Division does:
“The [Fiscal Year] 2012 $1.14 billion criminal fine total is the highest ever
obtained by the Division in a single year and the second time since 2009 that the
Division exceeded the $1 billion fine mark.”
The FTC and DG Comp reports similar statistics.
Why the self-promotion?
Aggregate figures are irrelevant to deterrence.
To get a bigger budget? So the more they collect, the more they are rewarded? That
is a perverse incentive and there is a lot more than $12 involved.
Neutral Decision Maker
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“All parties must be fully apprised of the evidence submitted or to be
considered, and must be given [an] opportunity to cross-examine witnesses,
to inspect documents, and to offer evidence in explanation or rebuttal. In no
other way can a party maintain its rights or make its defense. In no other way
can it test the sufficiency of the facts to support the finding.” Interstate
Commerce Comm'n v. Louisville & N.R. Co., 227 U.S. 88, 93 (1913) .
Two concerns are implicated: notice of the case and of the evidence, and an
opportunity to rebut that evidence. This requires both
Transparency in the law, and
Transparency in the investigation.
Right to Confront Evidence
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How transparent is the applicable law?
Query whether antitrust consent decrees have made things more opaque for
parties and whether this opacity gives the agencies more leverage to extract
concessions.
Professor Whish just last year lamented the practice of agencies entering into
settlements and accepting commitments, “[Without infringement decisions] how
does the law develop? What is the law in cases like Google or Samsung? I
suspect I will never find out.”
Does the decision maker decide only after the party has been able
meaningfully to confront the evidence against it?
DG Comp has an open-file policy. Once it issues a Statement of Objections, the
accused may examine the evidence against it (subject to confidentiality limitations).
In the United States, the record is mixed: the Antitrust Division does not have an
open-file policy even in criminal cases. Some U.S. Attorneys do. Some states do.
The FTC follows its own rules for discovery in its “Part 3” internal hearings. 16
C.F.R. § § 3-4.
Right to Confront Evidence
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“The decisionmaker’s conclusion ... must rest solely on the legal rules
and evidence adduced at the hearing.... To demonstrate compliance
with this elementary requirement, the decisionmaker should state the
reasons for his determination and indicate the evidence he relied on.”
Goldberg, 397 U.S. at 271.
Reasoned Decision Based Solely Upon the Evidence
“That’s unanimous then – we don’t know what to do.”
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Does the agency cite to the record to substantiate its every finding of
fact?
This is among the most common failings the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
finds in reviewing agency decisions.
There may well be evidence in the record to support the agency’s finding,
but whether the agency relied upon that evidence, or overread the
evidence, or consulted an astrologer, is for the agency to say when we send
the matter back for reconsideration.
Reasoned Decision Based Solely Upon the Evidence
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“[T]he prescribed procedures not only provide the claimant with an effective
process for asserting his claim prior to any administrative action, but also
assure a right to an evidentiary hearing, as well as to a subsequent judicial
review before the denial of his claim becomes final.” Mathews v. Eldridge, 424
U.S. 319, 349 (1976) (procedure for discontinuance of social security
payments).
Review by an Independent Tribunal
“OK, all those in favor of delegating
decision-making, shrug your shoulders”
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Is the tribunal – usually a court but it can be a commission – independent of
government when it reviews an agency’s allegations or decision?
If so, to what standard does the judiciary hold the agency accountable?
The DoJ must bring its case in a court of first instance.
In a criminal case, such as a cartel matter, it must prove “guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt.” In a civil matter, usually a conduct case, its burden is to show
guilt by “a preponderance of the evidence,” as must any private plaintiff in any
civil case.
The court of appeals applies the law de novo but defers to the first-instance court
with regard to findings of fact unless “clearly erroneous.” Why?
Because the first-instance judge personally saw and heard the witnesses and
assessed their credibility.
Review by an Independent Tribunal
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To what standard does the judiciary hold the agency accountable?
When an FTC decision is appealed...
The court applies the law de novo, even though the Commission’s judgment is
based upon its expertise.
And even though the law requires that the FTC’s findings of fact must be
affirmed under the deferential “substantial evidence” standard [APA § 706(2)(E);
Indiana Fed’n of Dentists, 476 U.S. 447, 454 (1986)], query whether this is
warranted if the Commission has overturned the ALJ based upon evidence the
Commissioners did not actually hear.
As former Commissioner Rosch said: “Whatever the law may be, I am not
convinced that appellate courts agree that as a doctrinal matter, the FTC should
subject an ALJ’s findings of fact to a de novo review ....” Indeed it makes no
sense to elevate the judgment of someone who did not hear the evidence over
that of the person who did hear the evidence.
Review by an Independent Tribunal
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These six due process concerns (delay, hearing before the actual decision
maker, a neutral decision maker, the right to confront evidence, a reasoned
decision based solely upon the evidence, and review by an independent
tribunal) should frame our discussion for whether agency procedures are
providing sufficient safeguards to achieve not only
1. Accuracy in the result, but also
2. Legitimacy in the eyes of the parties and the public.
Conclusion
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“At some point the benefit of an additional safeguard to the individual
... may be outweighed by the cost,” Mathews, 424 U.S. at 348.
Conclusion: Due Process in Perspective
Ask yourself:
Has your agency reached that point
yet?
Ask again, from the point of view of a
company or individual charged with an
infringement.