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“Co-opetition.”¶
In another series of emails, senior executive at Mylan and Sandoz allegedly colluded with each other to “divvy up the market for generic blood pressure medication,” the DOJ said. One Sandoz executive was so pleased with the alleged illegal coordination that he wrote, “sometimes a little help from our competition is welcome as well,” prompting another senior executive to reply: “I guess this is what they call ‘co-opetition.”¶
Phone records also allegedly indicated that company representatives spoke at least 21 times by phone to divide and designate the market enabling each competitor to obtain roughly 50-percent of the total market share.¶
Ranking Competitors Based on Willingness to Collude?¶
As Teva’s Director of National Accounts, Nisha Patel was primarily responsible for implementing price increases. Patel allegedly accomplished this by systematically conspiring with Teva’s competitors — even maintaining a ranking system of competitors, scoring each based on their willingness to collude in pricing. According to the unredacted documents, Patel would allegedly assign a “+3” to the most collusive competitors and “-3” to the least willing. The complaint also included detailed rankings and numerous charts documenting Patel’s communication with competitors.¶
“No Emails please.”¶
The pharmaceutical executives appeared to be aware that they were engaging in illegal activity and sought to cover their tracks, with emails stating “No emails please. Phone calls. [redacted] let’s discuss.”¶
The picture of said email is at the top of the article.¶
Industry “Code words” Revealed?¶
The unredacted complaint also revealed what are said to be commonly used “code words” by the alleged coconspirators in attempts to collude with competitors on coordinating price increases, such as “fair share,” “playing nice in the sandbox,” and “fluff pricing.”¶
In one email from July 2013, Armando Kellum, the Director of Contracts and Pricing at Sandoz, wrote an email with the heading “Re: Product Sales and Market Share Performance” that simply read, “Fair Share for all!!!”. The next day, an internal email at Teva said they had agreed to the proposed market allocation, saying “Tell Greenstone we are playing nice in the sandbox and we will let them have [the wholesaler].”¶
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