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Guilty Verdicts In ADM Trial

A federal jury convicted three past and present Archer Daniels Midland Co. executives Thursday of conspiring with competitors to fix the price of the feed additive lysine.

Convicted were Michael Andreas, 49, on leave as executive vice president of ADM; Terrance Wilson, 60, retired head of ADM's corn-processing unit; and former ADM biochemist Mark Whitacre, 41.

They face a maximum three-year prison sentence and at least a $350,000 fine.

Whitacre, who is serving prison time for embezzling $9 million from ADM, also helped FBI agents collect audio and videotapes of ADM's dealings Asian and European competitors.

After hearing more than six weeks of testimony, the U.S. District Court jury deliberated for more than four days before returning the guilty verdicts. The courtroom was silent as the decision was read.

Andreas is the son of Dwayne Andreas, the politically connected chairman and founder of ADM, the agribusiness giant based in downstate Decatur that bills itself as "supermarket to the world."

In 1995, the company itself pleaded guilty to price-fixing involving lysine and another substance, citric acid. It paid a $100 million fine.

The younger Andreas' attorney, John Bray, contended throughout the trial that prosecutors were trying to pin a "delicate crime of words" on his client. Andreas appeared on several tapes played at the trial.

Bray continually reminded the jury that it is legal for competitors to exchange information about prices and quantities. In his closing arguments, Bray showed the jury several snippets of tape transcripts in which Andreas repeatedly said ADM "doesn't make deals."

The rest of the conversations with competitors were a lot of "bluster and bluffing," he said.

U.S. Attorney Scott Lassar, his staff and prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department spent months poring over the tapes and documents from ADM and competitors, particularly Tokyo-based Ajinomoto Co. Inc. Several competitors, including some who pleaded guilty to fixing the price of lysine, testified in the trial.

Lassar contended that the three ADM executives used the same model that an ADM employee testified had been designed to fix prices for citric acid, a model he said was masterminded by Wilson.

At the trial, Lassar produced notes and charts that he says prove that ADM agreed that it would have a 27 percent share of the world's $600 million lysine market in 1994, a target that he says the company hit within tenths of a percentage point.

"This was a crime of greed a crime by an extremely large corporation that wanted to make even more money at the expense of their customers," Lassar said.

Wilson's lawyer, Reed Weingarten, said his client met with competitors in order to get information from a tight-knit "Asian cartel" that had controlled the lysine market for years. He said Wilson may have offered information about prics and production and sales volumes, but said that on purpose much of that information was incorrect.

"This is not Business Ethics 101. This is how you deal in the real world," Weingarten said. "That's how Dwayne Andreas told Terry Wilson to do business."

Written By Martha Irvine

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