REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF ALAN GUEBERT
Farm and Food File for week beginning Sunday, July 16, 2000
Alan Guebert
If the about-to-be-released book Rats in the Grain simply was about the price fixing scandal that rocked global ag giant Archer Daniels Midland, you'd think the title would be singular: rat.
But as author James B. Lieber's meticulously researched book proves, packs of rats have taken up residency in corporate America, international ag business and--here's a shock--the US justice system. Lieber spotlights these three-piece-suited bandits in Rats in the Grain, published by Four Walls Eight Windows, 386 pages, $26, to be released July 28.
(In the interest of full disclosure, Lieber called in late 1997 to inform me of his hoped-for book. Subsequently, we met three times and spoke over a dozen times by phone. I was never interviewed for the book although it contains a smattering of my published reporting.)
Lieber possesses a unique blend of talents to investigate the price fixing trial of the century; he's a Ivy League lawyer and he writes plainly. That mix, combined with abundant facts and clear explanations of ADM legal maneuvering, puts the reader right in the middle of the courtroom drama that ended with three ADM executives--Michael Andreas, Terrence Wilson and Mark Whitacre--going to jail for carving up the global lysine market.
Yet the book, available on amazon.com, is far more than a review of the facts, fools and foibles of largest white collar crime in American agribusiness. Chapters chronicle ADM kingmaker Dwayne Andreas's rise to business and political power, chart the evolution of US antitrust law, and, of course, dissect the key witness testimony in the trial.
All are highly readable and coldly informative. For instance, the chapters on the trial delve into ADM's chief defense: its executives were white-hatted American heroes intent on destroying an "Asian" cartel. ADM attorneys played the race card early and often.
Lieber, a respected labor and civil rights lawyer from Pittsburgh, found the race-baiting and "we-are-heroes" defenses surreal, especially since audio and video tapes caught the conspirators red-handed and potty-mouthed.
Sleaze, both corporate and personal, permeates the tapes, trial and the book. The blue language would make even the most vulgar Las Vegas lounge comedian blush.
And jealous. After the 1995 FBI raid on ADM headquarters, Wilson, the-then ADM corn processing president, was caught on tape saying, "(Y)ou know, the main thing is if we were trying to fix prices, we ought to be fired for being so f------ incompetent."
No, er, kidding.
Even more shocking is the abundant evidence lawyer Lieber presents to build a solid case that the US Justice Department often subjugated itself to ADM's political power and well-connected attorneys in the prosecution of informant Mark Whitacre for fraud and tax evasion.
For example, Whitacre still maintains the nearly $10 million of ADM money he stashed in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands was "off-the-books" bonuses given to him by Michael Andreas with the approval of ADM president James Randall. Lieber gives multi-layered facts that endorses Whitacre's story.
And just as importantly, Lieber clearly shows ADM's version of the graft involves something Swiss, too--cheese; so filled with holes to be unbelievable.
The book's final chapters contain even more revelations: alleged document shredding by ADM chairman Dwayne Andreas after the June 1995 FBI raid; ADM's hiring prostitutes to help steal competitors' technology; the never investigated role of ADM president James Randall--or Chairman Andreas--in price fixing conspiracies; the Justice Dept.'s refusal to release public documents, and other sordid facts of sex, lies and videotape.
Indeed, given the new evidence contained in Rats in the Grain and the questions raised by its author, the clear brief presented in the book is unavoidable: The plea agreements and immunities granted the price fixers should be voided and an investigation--a complete one--should be done.
On June 26, a federal appeals court seemed to agree. It ordered the lenient ADM trial judge to tack another year on Michael Andreas and Terry Wilson's prison terms. In reviewing the case, they, like Lieber, apparently discovered justice had not been served.
More importantly, according to Lieber, it still hasn't. The rats--plural--remain.
(c) 2000 ag comm
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