[greenyes] Cleveland Scrap Dealer Accused of Price Fixing

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>]

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

March 4, 2005 2:25 p.m. EST

U.S. BUSINESS NEWS




Scrap Dealer Pleads Guilty
To Bid-Rigging Conspiracy
By PAUL GLADER

A scrap dealer who owns two Cleveland scrap yards has pleaded guilty to 
government charges of price-fixing and bid-rigging this week, according to 
the Department of Justice office in Cleveland.
As part of the plea agreement filed Tuesday, Jack Weingold, who owns M. 
Weingold & Co. and Harry Rock & Associates, could be imprisoned for 13 
months and pay a $700,000 fine. His companies will each pay a $5.65 million 
fine for a total of $11.3 million. An employee, Loren Margolis, also pleaded 
guilty and under the plea agreement could pay as much as $700,000 and spend 
10 to 12 months in prison. One of the companies also pleaded guilty to wire 
fraud. Attorneys for the defendants weren't immediately available for 
comment.
Prosecutors claimed in court documents the companies arranged numerous 
secret meetings in the 1990s with other scrap dealers, where the parties 
agreed not to compete with each other in buying scrap from manufacturers. 
Such an agreement impacted the prices paid on scrap metal worth hundreds of 
millions of dollars to the manufacturers, according to prosecutors.
The Department of Justice office in Cleveland says the defendants have 
agreed to "cooperate with the ongoing investigation" into scrap-metal 
dealers that has involved several cases in Cleveland and has extended to 
Florida and Indiana in recent years.
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_________________________
Peter Anderson, President
RECYCLEWORLDS CONSULTING
4513 Vernon Blvd. Suite 15
Madison, WI 53705-4964
Ph: (608) 231-1100
Fax: (608) 233-0011
Cell: (608) 698-1314
eMail: anderson@no.address
web: www.recycleworlds.net