The singing to federal prosecutors is striking some sour notes Downstate.
A Korean and two Japanese companies and three executives agreed to plead guilty and to cooperate with the government’s prosecution of price fixing in the $600 million global lysine market.
Archer Daniels Midland Co., a huge Decatur, Ill.-based agribusiness processor and marketer, is the leader in the lysine business with about 47 percent of the U.S. market. A former ADM executive, Mark Whitacre, has alleged that ADM instigated the price fixing, but he has been tainted by charges of embezzlement from the company.
“The government is closing in on ADM,” said Kenneth L. Adams, a Washington lawyer who represents lysine buyers. “The cooperation of the co-conspirators isolates ADM as the last target.”
ADM kept mum. Sources have reported that the company and two top executives will be indicted on federal price-fixing charges in early September.
