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Monday, July 28, 2008

Ind. Courts - "Concrete lawsuits ripe for settlement"

This ILB entry from May 20, 2006 is headed "Concrete price-fix case vexes helpless consumers." This May 6, 2007 entry is headed "Indiana concrete customer lawsuits could net millions."

Today, Jeff Swiatek of the Indianapolis Star reports in a story that begins:

The next three months could see settlements from the three remaining corporate defendants in a concrete price-fixing lawsuit in Indianapolis.

Court-ordered talks in August, September and October could lead to high-dollar settlements that would benefit the more than 5,000 Indiana customers of concrete who are in line to collect funds that so far total $24 million from the first three defendants to settle out of court.
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The largest of the remaining defendants is IMI, the biggest concrete company in Central Indiana and the prime target of plaintiffs in their lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis.

Greenfield-based IMI is seen as vulnerable in the civil lawsuit because it agreed in 2005 to pay $29.2 million in criminal fines for its role in the price-fixing conspiracy. At the time, it was the largest fine in U.S. history against a domestic antitrust violator. The criminal case also resulted in prison terms for nine concrete company executives.

In the civil case, however, which is filed as a class action by customers of the concrete companies, IMI is fighting tough. Its executives, alone among all the defendants, have refused to testify about matters involving the conspiracy, taking the Fifth Amendment in depositions, said Irwin Levin, the lead plaintiffs' attorney.

"That tells you the attitude they are taking. They absolutely refused to testify" about the conspiracy in the civil depositions, said Levin, an Indianapolis lawyer.

IMI also is trying to get federal Judge Sarah Evans Barker to prevent the plaintiffs' expert witness, a Virginia economist and antitrust expert named John Beyer, from testifying in the civil trial if it occurs.

Beyer has submitted analysis in the case supporting the plaintiffs' argument that the concrete companies overcharged customers as a result of their conspiracy.

G. Daniel Kelley Jr., an attorney for IMI, said the building materials company contends the conspiracy wasn't effective and didn't lead to customer overcharges -- which is something the plaintiffs must prove to win their civil lawsuit.

"A guilty plea (to a criminal conspiracy) has nothing to do with whether the conspiracy was effective," he said.

"We didn't admit that it (the conspiracy) caused any harm to anybody," Kelley said, adding that plaintiffs' lawyers are "riding a horse that can't travel very far."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 28, 2008 08:45 AM
Posted to Ind Fed D.Ct. Decisions