Feds mull closing antitrust office here

OVER THE past 10 years, the Justice Department's Antitrust Division in Philadelphia collected at least $212 million in criminal fines as a result of convictions in price-fixing and related antitrust cases.

But if Attorney General Eric Holder gets his way, the antitrust office here and three others will soon be shuttered.

On Oct. 5, Holder proposed closing Justice's antitrust offices in Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta and Cleveland, and relocating 94 attorneys and support staff to offices in New York, Chicago, Washington and San Francisco, where most criminal antitrust cases have been handled recently.

The plan would save $8 million by consolidating office space, and would provide more resources for larger, international criminal investigations, said Justice spokeswoman Gina Talamona.

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., ranking member on a House appropriations subcommittee with oversight of the Justice Department, said that he asked staff to look at Holder's proposal. "The sign-off has not been given," he said. "That's in the hands of the Republican chair."

The move to close the office here - which was established in 1940 - surprised career prosecutors.

They said that Holder's plan has decimated morale, made no sense, would stymie criminal antitrust enforcement here and send the wrong message to crooks.

One said that the proposed closing was "penny wise and pound foolish," and that the office was a "profit center" because of fines collected compared to its budget.

The Philadelphia office's 2011 budget was $4.5 million, of which $520,000 was for rent, Talamona said.

Fines collected by field offices go directly into the Crime Victims Fund, she said, and do not pay for field-office operations. "It's still revenue to the government," groused one prosecutor.

If the office here is closed, a career prosecutor said, smaller criminal investigations would be curtailed and some crimes would go "undetected and unpunished."

(The Philadelphia office handles all criminal antitrust cases arising within Pennsylvania, South Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.)

Talamona disagreed. "Vigorous enforcement will continue across the board," she said, adding that 14 attorneys and nine staff here would be offered jobs in other offices, plus relocation expenses.

But several prosecutors said that they would not be able to relocate because of personal reasons, and others worry that they could be laid off in a subsequent round of cost-cutting if they relocated.

Laura Heiser, a veteran antitrust prosecutor here, sent a letter to Senate and House appropriations committee members, noting that the action was "political" and "designed to . . . shift the . . . focus from criminal to civil enforcement."

Justice's own statistics show a dramatic decline in grand-jury investigations and criminal cases filed in 2010 compared to 2009.

But Talamona said that in 2011 the criminal enforcement program filed more cases than it had in any of the past 20 years.