THE FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL GLOBAL CARTELS OF THE 1990s: OVERVIEW AND UPDATE

“Greed is good.” --Gordon Gecko in Wall Street (1987) “Greed Is Bad.”--Paul Krugman, The New York Times, June 4, 2002 “For many years, Archer Daniels Midland Co.’s philosophy of customer relations could be summed up by a quote from former ADM President James Randall: ‘Our competitors are out friends. Our customers are the enemy.’ This motto animated the company’s business dealings and ultimately led to blatant violations of U.S. antitrust law, a guilty plea and a staggering criminal fine against the company . . . The facts involved in this case reflect an inexplicable lack of business ethics and an atmosphere of general lawlessness that infected the very heart of one of America’s leading corporate citizens. Top executives at ADM and its Asian co-conspirators throughout the early 1990s spied on each other, fabricated aliases and front organizations to hide their activities, hired prostitutes to gather information from competitors, lied, cheated, embezzled, extorted, and obstructed justice.” -- Decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit (Kanne et al. 2000:1-2) “Globalization can bring great benefits to consumers and business, but it can also cause harm, as evidenced by the rise in global cartels such as the vitamin cartel . . .” -- Senior official, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Business Weekly Review (December 13, 2001).