United States requests extradition of executive in cartel case

By assistant attorney Adrian Kielberg

The Ro-Ro cartel

In 2016 a number of shipping companies, among them WWL, NYK Line, K-Line, CSAV and Hoëgh Autoliners admitted to having divided customers and routes between them. This they had done when sending cars, trucks and construction and agricultural equipment to customers. The participants in the cartel, which was named the "Ro-Ro" cartel (short for roll-on roll-off shipments), were fined a total of USD 255 million by the US competition authorities. There were concurrently investigations on-going in both the EU, Canada and Japan.

In connection with the admissions the US Department of Justice brought charges against 11 executives of the shipping companies for participation in illegal cartel activities. Of those 11, four were sentenced to prison in the United States. The other seven, according to the American authorities, have been fugitives since 2016. One of them has now been arrested in Europe on the basis of an American arrest warrant coming through Interpol, a so-called Red Notice.

The European country of which the person is a citizen now must decide if the person can be extradited to the United States to face prosecution. The Romano Pisciotti decision earlier this year made it clear that EU law does not prevent extradition, and that the question of extradition will be for the national laws of the relevant EU Member State to decide.

The Romano Pisciotti case

Recent years have seen American competition authorities increasingly seeking extradition of executives of enterprises convicted of illegal cartel activities in the United States for prosecution. In 2014, through a similar Interpol arrest warrant, the US successfully requested the extradition of Italian citizen Romano Pisciotti, who had been personally charged in 2010 for his involvement in the so-called “Marine Hose” cartel. Romano Pisciotti was arrested in Germany, en route to Italy after a business trip to Nigeria.

In connection with his extradition to United States, Romano Pisciotti brought an action against the Federal Republic of Germany for a declaration that the extradition was unlawful and for payment of damages. In those proceedings the German court requested from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) a preliminary ruling on the lawfulness of the extradition. On 10 April 2018 the CJEU ruled that an EU Member State is not required to afford nationals of other EU Member States the same protection from extradition to third countries as the protection afforded to its own nationals. It is therefore entirely up to the extraditing member state to notify the EU national's home state of the imminent extradition in order that the home state may request surrender of its national if it finds the extradition is unwarranted.

Read our previous news article about the Pisciotti case.