Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter Delivers Remarks at the Procurement Collusion Strike Force’s Fifth Anniversary Event

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Five years ago, Justice Department leadership gathered in this building with U.S. Attorneys and leaders of federal law enforcement agencies to make public their bold vision - an inter-agency effort designed to protect the government - at all levels - from collusive schemes and antitrust crimes.[1] These schemes - these crimes - target government spending on goods and services and do real harm to the public, who fund government and expect to receive the benefit of competition. The vision those leaders articulated five years ago was to join forces-to create a strike force - that leveraged the skills, abilities, resources, and people from each agency in a common effort.

It was a direct response to a serious problem: the manipulation of the procurement system. Public procurement - an essential part of how governments provide services, infrastructure, and security - has long been vulnerable to collusion and anticompetitive schemes. Whether it's price-fixing, bid-rigging, or other fraudulent schemes, bad actors have found ways to exploit weaknesses in the system for their own gain, at the expense of the broader public good. These illegal practices are not just costly; they also undermine trust in our government and diminish the value of public investments.

Since that November day in 2019, the group then and there first announced has grown, more than twofold, with the support of the professionals at the department, at the U.S. Attorneys' Offices, and in the dozen law enforcement agencies who are our national partners.[2] We are now present in 25 judicial districts in the United States. And we have looked beyond U.S. shores, via Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF): Global, to protect U.S. funds abroad.[3] We have also looked beyond the physical world to the digital one. Our Data Analytics Project strives to harness data the U.S. government already collects - or should be collecting - to more effectively and efficiently spot the indicia of criminal collusive schemes.[4]

The results of these efforts have been profound. In its first five years, the PCSF has investigated and prosecuted more than 85 individuals and companies involved in collusive and fraudulent schemes, recovering substantial sums for the American taxpayer. The Strike Force has uncovered price-fixing, bid-rigging, criminal monopolization and other corrupt practices that have inflated costs for everything from national defense contracts to critical infrastructure projects.

To put a finer point on it, the PCSF and the Antitrust Division have opened over 145 criminal investigations and obtained over 60 convictions for crimes involving over $575 million worth of government contracts and kickbacks. The charged cases run the gamut. Criminal charges were filed and resolved against defendants in various industries and geographies, including transportation improvement and repair contracts in California;[5] aluminum structure projects in North Carolina;[6] highway crack-sealing maintenance projects in Wyoming and surrounding states;[7] insulation contracts in Connecticut;[8] and U.S. military contracts for projects in Alaska,[9] Georgia,[10] Michigan,[11] Texas and South Korea.[12] The PCSF even successfully used advanced law enforcement tools, such as a court-authorized wiretap, to collect evidence of alleged bid-rigging in the act.[13] The PCSF has also enhanced deterrence and detection by training over 39,000 agents, attorneys, auditors, analysts and procurement officials. We have been able to achieve these results because you in this room, leaders from across the law enforcement and oversight communities, have dedicated your time and your people to this work. For that, I and the entire Justice Department are grateful.

The work of the PCSF is part of larger fabric of criminal antitrust enforcement, handled by the Antitrust Division, the part of the Justice Department that I lead. The Antitrust Division has a seemingly simple mission: to promote and maintain competition in the American economy.[14] Why? Because this is the fundamental economic policy of our country - competition. When markets function properly - with robust competition, free of the corrosive impact of fraud and collusion - consumers benefit with lower prices, greater choice and increased innovation.

The same is true for the government when it is a customer - lower prices, better products, delivering more for our citizens. The taxpayers deserve the benefits of competition when their governments go into the market to buy goods and service to deliver on the myriad missions assigned, at all levels - federal, state and local. Too often, though, government spending is the target of criminal schemes, and losing even a fraction of the taxpayers' money to collusive criminal conduct is incredibly costly. One respected estimate is that if we eliminated bid rigging from public procurement, we could help reduce procurement prices by 20% or more.[15] That's a literal collusion tax imposed on spending. Imagine what we could do with 20% more funding, especially in the three major spending bills[16] passed in recent years.

As I reflect on the work of the Procurement Collusion Strike Force over the past five years, it is important to recognize broader trends in criminal antitrust enforcement and how these trends have shaped the PCSF's approach to combating procurement collusion.

Over the last several years, criminal antitrust enforcement has become more aggressive and sophisticated. There has been a clear shift in both the enforcement landscape and the legal environment, with prosecutors increasingly pursuing criminal charges, whether under Title 15 of the U.S. Code, which is where the antitrust offenses are located, or under Title 18, which codifies many other federal criminal offenses, such as fraud, obstruction, money laundering, and conspiracies. This change is driven in part by the recognition that anticompetitive offenses - particularly in the context of government contracting - take many forms, and that our talented prosecutors and law enforcement officers should use every tool available to protect the taxpayers' money.

The Antitrust Division has consistently focused on individual accountability. We charge individuals involved in antitrust violations in recognition that corporate fines alone are not sufficient to deter criminal behavior.[17] This trend has led to a rise in criminal convictions and penalties for culpable executives and employees, reinforcing the message that individuals will be held accountable for antitrust violations. In the past five years, we've seen an uptick in high-profile convictions of executives involved in bid-rigging and price-fixing conspiracies, sending a powerful deterrent signal to other would-be offenders.

Another key development has been the increasing use of advanced technology and data analytics in detecting antitrust violations. In the past, prosecutors often relied on traditional investigative techniques, such as witness interviews and document reviews. Today, however, tools like machine learning, network analysis, and big data allow investigators to identify patterns of collusion and fraud that might otherwise go undetected. The PCSF has been a leader in advancing these tools, helping to expose increasingly complex and coordinated schemes. Today, data has provided a new dimension of analysis to our investigations, and we are now able to uncover red flags in a way that we never have before. This technological shift has enhanced the Strike Force's ability to stay ahead of bad actors who use sophisticated methods to conceal their wrongdoing.

The increasing collaboration between federal, state, and international law enforcement agencies has also played a critical role in strengthening antitrust enforcement. Procurement collusion often involves cross-border networks of conspirators, and many of the largest bid-rigging and price-fixing schemes span multiple jurisdictions. The PCSF has played an essential role in fostering these collaborative relationships - both within the United States and with global partners. These international alliances allow the PCSF to investigate and disrupt global cartels that target public procurement markets, creating a more coordinated global effort to combat procurement collusion.

These trends - heightened individual accountability, advanced investigative tools, and greater international cooperation - are reshaping the landscape of criminal antitrust enforcement. And they complement our work on longstanding projects to incentivize good corporate citizenship, particularly the evolving role of leniency policies and the increasing emphasis on compliance programs and culture in those companies. Both have played a crucial role in strengthening antitrust enforcement and incentivizing corporate responsibility in markets, both in the public and private sectors.

Although our leniency policy has been around since the 1990s, it is not static. In 2022, the Antitrust Division vastly improved our Frequently Asked Questions, with an emphasis on making the benefits of the leniency policy understandable - and available - to a broader segment of the business community and the bar.[18]In the realm of public procurement, the leniency policy is especially critical. Procurement collusion is notoriously difficult to detect, often involving sophisticated schemes and collusion between companies that may go unnoticed for years. By offering leniency to cooperating companies, the Antitrust Division has been able to break open complex cartel behavior and expose wrongdoing that impacts taxpayers. The incentive to self-report illegal conduct ensures that there is an opportunity for companies to come clean and mitigate their penalties - while also helping to bring others involved in the conspiracy to justice.

In an ideal world, companies have the tools and structures in place to avoid antitrust crimes in the first place. To that end, the Antitrust Division has publicly available guidance on how our prosecutors assess corporate compliance programs. While that guidance is focused on how prosecutors weigh compliance programs when deciding on charges and making sentencing recommendations, our compliance guidance also helps companies understand how to avoid breaking the law. We updated our guidance on this topic just last week, and it now includes topics like AI, ephemeral messaging and nondisclosure agreements.[19] This guidance covers best practices for detecting and preventing antitrust violations, including bid-rigging and price-fixing, and encourages companies to establish compliance programs. By fostering a culture of compliance, companies can not only reduce the risk of antitrust violations but also position themselves as responsible players in the marketplace.

The combination of leniency and strong compliance guidance serves as a powerful deterrent to corporate misconduct. It signals to the business community that the department is committed to holding wrongdoers accountable, while also recognizing that businesses can take proactive steps to avoid breaking the law. As the landscape of procurement collusion becomes more complex, the role of leniency and compliance will only become more important. Moving forward, we expect to see even greater emphasis on the need for companies to adopt compliance programs to safeguard against fraud and antitrust risk, while at the same time incentivizing them to cooperate in uncovering wrongdoing. This shift not only helps ensure that procurement collusion is detected and punished, but it also helps create a more ethical and transparent marketplace where taxpayers can be confident that their dollars are being spent responsibly.

Over the past five years, the Procurement Collusion Strike Force has become a pillar of the Justice Department's anti-corruption strategy, and the United States' anti-corruption strategy more broadly.[20] That is due in large part to the collaborative, cross-cutting composition of the Strike Force. It includes a diverse team of prosecutorial, law enforcement and oversight professionals - including prosecutors, investigators, data analysts, and expert partners from across the federal government. Together, they all work together to identify and dismantle collusive, fraudulent conspiracies that manipulate government contracts. By leveraging the expertise and resources of multiple agencies, the PCSF has been able to target collusion and fraud at its core, investigating and prosecuting bad actors across a wide array of industries - from defense contracting to construction, from healthcare to information technology.

In fact, because I saw firsthand how successful this strike-force model has been, I have adapted to some of the other work the Antitrust Division does. Indeed, the PCSF was in part the inspiration for the Task Force on Health Care Monopolies and Collusion (HCMC), which I announced in May 2024.[21] The HCMC will guide the Antitrust Division's enforcement strategy and policy approach in health care, including by facilitating policy advocacy, investigations and, where warranted, civil and criminal enforcement in health care markets.

While we are proud of the success that the PCSF has achieved over the past five years, we must acknowledge that the battle against procurement collusion is an ongoing and growing challenge. The global nature of procurement collusion, combined with the increasing complexity of modern supply chains, has created new avenues for bad actors to exploit. Fraudulent and collusive schemes are becoming more sophisticated, and emerging threats require heightened vigilance and advanced tools to detect and address.

For this reason, the success of the Procurement Collusion Strike Force depends on continued investment in the future of this initiative. The work of the PCSF demands sophisticated technology, advanced data analytics, and highly trained personnel to stay ahead of increasingly complex schemes. As we know, procurement collusion is not just a financial issue - it's also a matter of national security, public health and fairness. The cost of inaction is far too high.

Therefore, it is crucial that the necessary funding and support are provided to ensure the PCSF can expand its efforts in line with these growing challenges. Funding is needed for specialized investigators, analysts and data scientists, and investments in new technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect fraud. Funding is also needed to ensure U.S. government agencies can upgrade outdated and inefficient procurement systems that bad actors can exploit, and utilize electronic tools to collect procurement data, including pre-award data, that the PCSF needs to do its job.

Without sufficient resources, the ability of the PCSF to effectively combat existing threats - and to remain agile in the face of new threats - will be hindered. The taxpayers deserve no less. As we continue to hold bad actors accountable, protect taxpayer dollars and promote a fair procurement process, we must ensure that the strike force has the tools it needs to be effective.

In closing, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the success of the PCSF over the past five years. Your hard work, commitment to justice, and relentless dedication to transparency have made a real and lasting difference in protecting the public interest. I am deeply grateful for your efforts, and I look forward to the continued success of this initiative. Together, we will ensure that every taxpayer dollar is spent honestly, efficiently and in service to the people of this great country.

Congratulations on this remarkable milestone, and here's to many more years of success ahead.

Thank you.