Three Former ADM Executives Indicted
A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted three former executives of the giant agricultural company Archer-Daniels-Midland Inc. on criminal price-fixing charges, including Michael D. Andreas, who ran the company’s daily operations, and Mark E. Whitacre, who taped conversations as an informant for the FBI in an antitrust investigation.
A former executive of a Japanese company also was indicted. The four individuals are the first to be charged in the Justice Department’s four-year global investigation into price-fixing in markets for three little-known ingredients used in food production.
ADM agreed in October to plead guilty to price-fixing and to pay $100 million, the largest criminal antitrust fine in history. ADM has been cooperating with the government since then.
Andreas “will plead not guilty and will fight the charges all the way,” said Jack Bray, an attorney for Andreas. Neither Whitacre nor an attorney for him returned telephone calls seeking comment, but Whitacre told news services he would no longer cooperate with the government.
“Corporations don’t commit crimes by themselves. They do it through people, who must be punished,” said Gary R. Spratling, deputy assistant attorney general for criminal enforcement in the antitrust division. “This case sends the message that high-level people will not be excused.”
The charges against Michael Andreas were a blow for Dwayne O. Andreas, 78, Michael’s father and the chairman of ADM, who has long been a powerful political insider in both Republican and Democratic circles. He has contributed millions of dollars to both parties. He has long planned on having his son succeed him as chairman.
The third former ADM official indicted was Terrance S. Wilson, once head of ADM’s Corn Processing Division. Also charged was Ka
zutoshi Yamada, managing director of Ajinomoto Co., a company based in Tokyo whose U.S. subsidiary is Heartland Lysine Inc. in Chicago.
“Terry Wilson is an honorable businessman who never intended to violate the law and was doing his best to help ADM break the Japanese hold on the lysine market,” said Reid W. Weingarten, Wilson’s attorney.
Yamada’s attorney did not return calls requesting comment.
The Justice Department also said a South Korean company, Cheil Jedang Ltd. of Seoul, agreed to plead guilty to price-fixing and pay a $1.25-million fine.
The Justice Department’s investigation into price-fixing in the global markets of lysine, citric acid and high fructose corn syrup is continuing, officials said.
In addition to ADM, four of its competitors have now pleaded guilty to price-fixing and agreed to cooperate.
According to the indictment, the individuals charged Tuesday conspired in meetings in the United States, Paris, Mexico City, Vancouver and Tokyo to fix the prices and volumes of lysine, a growth additive used around the world in the feed of pigs and chickens.
During the three years covered by the indictment, ADM and its co-conspirators produced virtually all of the lysine sold.
ADM’s lysine sales alone were $454 million during that time, the Justice Department said.
ADM’s products, while ubiquitous, are not usually known to consumers, but they are ingredients for products such as Doritos corn snacks, SnackWells cookies and Coca-Cola. ADM had sales of $13.3 billion last year and promotes itself as the “Supermarket to the World.”
