As the Smoke Clears
J. Mark Gidley, Christopher M. Curran

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The judge in shipping's most-watched antitrust case came down on the US prosecutors like a ton of bricks.

"And I almost drove my car off the road."

His White & Case partner, J. Mark Gidley, got his copy of the ruling at his Washington, D.C., office and did something every former student can relate to: He turned to the last page to check his grade, as handed down by US District Judge Bruce W. Kauffman.

In truth, there should have been little surprise or suspense when Kauffman threw out the US Department of Justice (DOJ)'s antitrust indictments against tanker owner Stolt and two former executives early December 2007.

Yes, the timing was a mystery, as the month-long pre-trial hearing in Kauffman's Philadelphia courtroom ended in June and no one knew for sure when the ruling was coming.

But the proceedings before Kauffman were so lopsided that if it were a prizefight, the referee would have stopped it. TradeWinds reported on June 22, in a story headlined "Stolt nears landmark win," that "there seems to be little doubt about which way the judge is leaning."

If prosecutors had any hope, it was that Kauffman was taking a devil's advocate approach to extremes and that he would let the charges stand, while chiding that the DOJ needed to shore up its case.

No.

It turned out that the Judge Kauffman everyone saw in court was exactly the same Judge Kauffman who delivered a stinging rejection of the DOJ's case in his 35-page decision.

This article takes a look at the winners and losers of a process with its roots in February 2002, when Stolt's then-general counsel, Paul O'Brien, found an incriminating memo left on his desk that brought to light a price-fixing cartel among Stolt and competitors Odfjell Seachem SA of Norway and Jo Tankers of the Netherlands.