Legal briefing on antitrust violations involving the food industry is released

Today, the Institute for Complexity Management’s John Galt Program for Investigative Studies posted online one of the most detailed legal briefings of its kind on violations of antitrust laws by the food industry.

The legal briefing focuses on the food industry’s theft of intellectual property from a small company, to fix prices for risk management software at artificially low prices in order to increase company profits at the expense of the health and safety of the American consumer.

“It works like this,” said John Hnatio the Executive Director of the Institute for Complexity Management and the John Galt principal investigator on the case, “The Food and Drug Administration, Battelle Memorial Institute and the Grocery Manufacturers Association teamed up to implement a scheme.  The scheme involved bid rigging and price fixing.  Two of the biggest no-no’s in all of antitrust law.”

Bid rigging is a form of fraud in which a commercial contract is promised to only one party. Price fixing is an agreement between participants in the same market to buy, sell, or maintain the price of a product at an artificially fixed price.

“Simply put, the FDA, in collusion with Battelle and the food industry through the Grocery Manufacturers Association, misappropriated and then duplicated patented food safety technology they did not own.  FDA, Battelle, and the Department of Defense, colluded to have a DOD preferred subcontractor duplicate the technology in the absence of fair and open competition—this is called bid rigging.  Then the FDA gave the stolen technology away to the food industry in cooperation with Battelle and the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association free of charge.  This is called price fixing,” Hnatio added.

The legal brief issued today provides a comprehensive point-by-point explanation of exactly how the FDA, DOD, Battelle, and the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association violated Sherman and Clayton antitrust laws.  The legal brief includes hundreds of exhibits providing indisputable evidence of the FDA and food industry scheme.

“What is most interesting is that the enterprise consisting of FDA, Battelle, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, have all conceded to their predatory and anti-competitive conduct in this case,” Hnatio observed.  Violation of antitrust laws means that members of the unlawful enterprise can be sued for triple damages.

The Institute for Complexity Management has sent a copy of the legal brief to the Attorney General for the State of Ohio, Mike DeWine, asking for a complete investigation.  DeWine is responsible for overseeing Battelle’s status as a charitable non-profit organization ever since Battelle was caught cheating in a profits scandal that resulted in the loss of their non-profit status several years ago.  Battelle ended up paying millions of dollars in back taxes and agreed to be supervised by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office in order to regain their charitable status.

The Institute for Complexity Management has also provided the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Vincent Cohen; the U.S. Attorney for the State of Maryland, Rod Rosenstein; and the U.S. Attorney for the State of Ohio, Vincent Carter with copies of the legal brief requesting that they undertake investigations.

The complete legal brief and all of the supporting evidence can be accessed online at https://jgpis.org/antitrust/antitrust-brief-on-projectioneering-v-the-food-and-drug-administration-battelle-memorial-institute-and-the-grocery-manufacturers-association/.

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