Editor’s note: This article is the first in a two-part series.
The Philadelphia Field Office (PFO) of the Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, was established in 1948 by legendary trustbuster Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thurman Arnold. With such an auspicious beginning, it was not surprising that the PFO was destined for great things. The PFO’s first indictment, brought in 1948, charged “shoe finders” with price-fixing. Convictions resulted in total fines of $11,000. When the office closed 65 years later, its largest single fine obtained was $134 million in an international cartel case. During its lifetime, PFO cases helped establish the Philadelphia bar as leading attorneys in the field of antitrust. The plaintiffs class-action antitrust lawsuit was pioneered in Philadelphia on the heels of one of the PFO’s most famous cases. Finally, cases brought by the PFO, and the cases brought by the private bar, often climbed to appeal. These cases helped make the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit a leading authority in many areas of antitrust, whose cutting-edge analysis has often been adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The lights went out for the PFO on January 30 after a successful run of often groundbreaking criminal antitrust enforcement. The passing of the PFO should not go without an “obituary” noting some of the outstanding work done by the dedicated public servants who shaped the PFO’s, and to a small degree, antitrust history.
