Amarin has retained King & Spalding, the Attorney's listed to lobby aren't the usual lobbyist players. I believe King & Spalding is positioning for a Senate Hearing involving Health Care and why the FDA has road blocked an innovating Heart Medication. The Senate will drag out vital information WE can use to formulate an Antitrust/Cartel law suit against parties that have colluded to obstruct Exclusivity, Patent Extensions, and expanded approval, all of which have limited Amarin's ability to compete. Look back to my crazy ranting posts in March... Once a Senate Committee is announced the first Rat to jump ship gets an out-of-jail free card, there's plenty of rat's trying to sink the Amarin ship.
From the DOJ Department of trust info:
III. The Antitrust Division's Leniency Program
The greatest single driver of our success, though, is our Corporate Leniency Program. Under that program, the first corporate cartel member that comes promptly to the Antitrust Division, cooperates with our investigation and otherwise meets the requirements of our program will get a promise of full immunity not only for the corporation, but also for cooperating individuals. The Antitrust Division's Corporate Leniency Program is our greatest source of cartel evidence, and has served as a model for similar programs that have been adopted by antitrust authorities around the world.(12) Our experience with cartel enforcement has taught us that cartels are usually extremely profitable for those who engage in them, and it is very difficult to detect cartel behavior or, once discovered, to compile sufficient evidence to successfully prosecute cartel members in court.(13) The Antitrust Division has had great success combining vigorous criminal prosecution with our leniency program in order to increase the likelihood of cartel detection.
To be successful, a leniency program must provide significant benefits as compared with the alternative strategies of staying in a cartel or withdrawing but remaining silent. This requires both severe penalties and a genuine fear of detection. If firms perceive that the risk of being caught by antitrust authorities is very small, stiff maximum penalties will not be sufficient to deter cartel activity or to cause firms to report their wrongdoing to authorities in exchange for amnesty. Once the credible threat of detection exists, the threat of being turned in by one's fellow corporate cartelists will increase. It is also very helpful to have an individual leniency policy, which creates the potential for an amnesty race as between a corporation and its own culpable employees.(14) Finally, there must be predictability and transparency to the program. This affords potential applicants a high degree of assurance that, if they take the risk of coming forward, they will get the reward. Transparency in a leniency program makes it more likely that applicants will come in and that the cartel will be broken up.
The Antitrust Division's leniency program uses a classic carrot and stick approach to anti-cartel enforcement: it provides major incentives for companies that choose to self-report antitrust offenses (e.g., relief from criminal prosecution for the reporting corporation and its officials), but this amnesty is available only to the first in the door and on certain conditions (e.g., it is not available to ring leaders and requires full, complete and truthful cooperation). The key is that only one company can qualify for amnesty. A company that does not win the race to the prosecutor -- even if by only a matter of days or hours, as has been the case on a number of occasions -- will not be eligible for amnesty. A second-in company can offer to cooperate and may enter into a plea agreement and have its fine reduced, but this process falls outside of our leniency program. This situation leads to tension and mistrust among the cartel members. In this way, the program can serve to prevent cartels from forming, or to destabilize them by causing members to turn against one another in a race to the government.
Most of the corporate defendants in international cartel cases are multinational companies selling many products. It will come as no surprise then to learn that a company fixing prices in one product market may be doing so in other markets. The Antitrust Division has had great success pursuing a strategy of cartel profiling, in which one investigation eventually gives root to prosecutions in additional different markets. In fact, roughly half of the more than one hundred sitting grand juries currently investigating suspected cartel activity were initiated as a result of evidence obtained as a result of an investigation of a completely separate market.
For example, a new investigation results when a company approaches the Antitrust Division to negotiate a plea agreement in a current investigation and then seeks to obtain more lenient treatment by offering to disclose the existence of a second, unrelated conspiracy. Under these circumstances, companies that choose to self-report and cooperate in a second matter can obtain what is known as "Amnesty Plus." In such a case, the company will receive amnesty -- that is, total immunity for the company and its cooperating employees -- in connection with that second conspiracy. Additionally, the company will receive a substantial additional discount by the Antitrust Division in calculating an appropriate fine for its participation in the first conspiracy.(15)
Amnesty Plus induces companies that are already under investigation to clean house and report violations in other markets in which they may be involved. Companies that elect not to take advantage of the Amnesty Plus opportunity risk potentially harsh consequences: the Antitrust Division's "Penalty Plus" policy. If a company participated in a second antitrust offense and does not report it, and the conduct is later discovered and successfully prosecuted, where appropriate, the Antitrust Division will urge the sentencing court to consider the company's and any culpable executives' failure to report the conduct voluntarily as an aggravating sentencing factor. We will pursue a fine or jail sentence at or above the upper end of the Sentencing Guidelines range. Moreover, where multiple convictions occur, a company's or individual's sentencing calculations may be increased based on the prior criminal history. In one recent Penalty Plus case, the Antitrust Division asked the court to impose a sentence that was substantially more than the Sentencing Guidelines fine range because of the company's recidivism as an antitrust offender. In that case, the volume of affected commerce was $17 million; the company paid a fine of $12 million and three of its executives were carved out of the plea agreement. If the company had reported the conduct when it had the chance in connection with the earlier prosecution, it would have paid no fine and its executives, who now are subject to prosecution, would have (if they cooperated) been given full nonprosecution protection.
For a company, the failure to self-report under the Amnesty Plus program could mean the difference between a potential fine as high as eighty percent or more of the volume of affected commerce versus no fine at all on the Amnesty Plus product. For the individual, it could mean the difference between a lengthy jail sentence and avoiding jail altogether. As a result of the Antitrust Division's Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus policies, companies understand that they cannot afford to remain willfully ignorant by limiting the scope of their internal investigations. The risks to the companies and their executives are too great.
AI
