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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. From the Department of Justice. July 13, 2022:

ANTITRUST LAWS AND YOU

Many consumers have never heard of antitrust laws, but enforcement of these laws saves consumers millions and even billions of dollars a year. The Federal Government enforces three major Federal antitrust laws, and most states also have their own. Essentially, these laws prohibit business practices that unreasonably deprive consumers of the benefits of competition, resulting in higher prices for products and services.

The three major Federal antitrust laws are:

• The Sherman Antitrust Act
• The Clayton Act
• The Federal Trade Commission Act.

The following information on these laws comes from the Antitrust Enforcement and the Consumer guide.

The Sherman Antitrust Act

This Act outlaws all contracts, combinations, and conspiracies that unreasonably restrain interstate and foreign trade. This includes agreements among competitors to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate customers, which are punishable as criminal felonies.

The Sherman Act also makes it a crime to monopolize any part of interstate commerce. An unlawful monopoly exists when one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anticompetitive conduct.

The Act, however, is not violated simply when one firm’s vigorous competition and lower prices take sales from its less efficient competitors; in that case, competition is working properly.

The Clayton Act

This Act is a civil statute (carrying no criminal penalties) that prohibits mergers or acquisitions that are likely to lessen competition. Under this Act, the Government challenges those mergers that are likely to increase prices to consumers. All persons considering a merger or acquisition above a certain size must notify both the Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission. The Act also prohibits other business practices that may harm competition under certain circumstances.

The Federal Trade Commission Act

This Act prohibits unfair methods of competition in interstate commerce, but carries no criminal penalties. It also created the Federal Trade Commission to police violations of the Act.

Related Offenses

The Antitrust Division also often uses other laws to fight illegal activities that arise from conduct accompanying antitrust violations or that otherwise impact the competitive process, as well as offenses that involve the integrity of an antitrust or related investigation, including laws that prohibit false statements to Federal agencies, perjury, obstruction of justice, conspiracies to defraud the United States and mail and wire fraud. Each of these crimes carries its own fine and imprisonment term, which may be added to the fines and imprisonment terms for antitrust law violations.

(Editor’s Note:) The most common anti-trust behavior on the part of businesses is collusion. The Justice Department provides these examples:)

“Most criminal antitrust presecutions involve price fixing, bid rigging, or market division or allocation schemes. Each of these forms of collusion may be prosecuted criminally if they occurred at least in part, within the past five years.

Proving such a crime does not require us (The Department of Justice) to show that the conspirators entered into a formal written or express agreement.

Price fixing, bid rigging, and other collusive agreements can be established either by direct evidence, such as the testimony of a participant, or by circumstantial evidence, such as suspicious bid patterns, travel and expense reports, telephone records, and business diary entries.

Under the law, price-fixing and bid-rigging schemes are per se violations of the Sherman Act. This means that where such a collusive scheme has been established, it cannot be justified under the law by arguments or evidence that, for example, the agreed-upon prices were reasonable, the agreement was necessary to prevent or eliminate price-cutting or ruinous competition, or the conspirators were merely trying to make sure that each got a fair share of the market.

Price fixing is an agreement among competitors to raise, fix, or otherwise maintain the price at which their goods, or services are sold.

It is not necessarily that competitors agree to charge exactly the same price, or that every competitor in a given industry join the conspiracy.

Price fixing can take many forms, and any agreement that restricts price competition violates the law.

Examples of Price-Fixing agreements include those to:

• Establish or adhere to price discounts.
• Hold prices firm.
• Eliminate or reduce discounts.
• Adopt a standard formula for computing prices.
• Maintain certain price differentials between different types, sizes, or quantities of products.
• Adhere to a minimum fee or price schedule.
• Fix Credit terms.
• Not advertise prices.

For more information, email antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov or phone 1-888-647-3288

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WPCNR THE POWER STORY. By John F. Bailey July 12, 2022:

One supplier Constellation Energy has informed customers in White Plains they could purchase electricity directly from them, bypassing Con Edison but the cost per kilowatt hour would double from about 7-1/2 cents a kilowatt hour to 15 cents a kilowatt hour, a possibility that will start to come true in two weeks.

The only way to control your bill is by conserving electricity, since your new Con Edison will be based on usage

As of 12 days ago, Sustainable Westchester (Westchester Power) turned over its customers participating in it six year energy cooperative of 28 towns and cities to Con Edison which will supply the electricity to them until the Sustainable management can obtain competitive green energy and traditional fossil and natural gas electricity. Con Edison will in addition charge for delivery as it does under the present Sustainable contract.

The first billings from Con Edison to Sustainable clients will be coming out approximately the first of August at the height of the electric demand year, aggravated by the consistent mid-80s and 90s weather.

In the spring Sustainable Westchester announced it could not obtain competitive rates due the raising of electricity prices across the board of its roster of suppliers. The non-profit said it hoped to negotiate competitive green energy rates (using solar, wind and water as power sources) and traditionally manufactured electricity after high energy costs declined.

One supplier Constellation Energy has informed customers in White Plains they could purchase electricity directly from them, bypassing Con Edison but the cost per kilowatt hour would double from about 7-1/2 cents a kilowatt hour to 15 cents a kilowatt hour.

To date no public leader or official, including the administration of White Plains has commented on this shift which will cost Westchester consumers in a Sustainable Westchester community plenty.

The independent energy community of ESCOs as they are known have indicated that increased energy costs for oil, natural gas as well as green sources has caused by what appears to be a unilaterally similar array of rates far beyond what Sustainable Westchester has been able to provide as rates in the past at a fixed rate over the course of two years. Sustainable Westchester has supplied the clean energy and fossil fuel reduced rates through its 27 community consortium of pooled buying power.

If the customer chooses to switch permanently to Con Edison for their electric power, they may not rejoin Sustainable Westchester.

In order to retain the right to Sustainable Westchester rates after the power provider obtains an attractive set of new rates to offer members in the consortium of 28 towns, they must stay in the cooperative.

For the last six months Con Edision has in a promotion aimed at Sustainable Customers, “green Rates” through Con Edison, with a fixed rate of $10.40 for the first month and can flucuate monthly based on energy supply.

The direct marketing promotions of Con Ed made no mention of the impending Sustainable Westchester ‘pause”.

WPCNR has made calls to Sustainable Westchester for a statement and comment on the details on how high the new charges Sustainable was presented with that effectively priced Sustainable out of the ability to obtain discounts even with the largest cities and towns of Westchester, including White Plains, pooling their energy buying power.

WPCNR was interested in the percent of energy price offerings increases to Sustainable Westchester and whether the “high range” was essentially parallel.

Those calls were not responded to. I asked if the price increases Sustainable faced could be construed as a joint, but certainly unintentional effort to make the Sustainable Westchester model of consortium buying unable to work.

No calls were received back from Sustainable Westchester

This week Sustainable announced the following changes as the company resolutely moves ahead to obtain energy savings for its customers

Sustainable Westchester Announces New Staff Members

Sherrisse-Lee Lewis, Director of Operations

Sherrisse-Lee Lewis joins Sustainable Westchester as the Director of Operations. She comes with over 15 years in leading non-profit business operations. Sherrisse takes pride in driving business process improvement, building team culture, and executing projects and strategic plans. Before Sustainable Westchester, Sherrisse led business operations at various non-profit start-ups and established foundations and cultural institutions throughout NYC. Most recently, Sherrisse was awarded the 2021 Office Ninjas All-Star award which is a global search for the most creative and strategic-minded operations professionals.“I am joining the team during an exciting time of change and growth. I look forward to what the future brings with the SW team and can’t wait to look back and smile at all we will continue to accomplish.”Sherrisse is a resident of Westchester’s North Salem community. When she is not working, she enjoys traveling, spending time with her children, family and friends.

Jessica Meister, Customer Support Manager

Jessica joined the team as Customer Support Manager in the Marketing and Outreach department for Sustainable Westchester in October 2021. She supports the department in various marketing and outreach avenues including developing outreach initiatives, customer support strategies, and customer database management. Prior to joining Sustainable Westchester, Jessica had been in the publishing industry for 12 years in production, audience development, and circulation and database management. She has previously worked for newspapers in central New Jersey and also a B2B boutique custom magazine publisher based in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Most recently she served for 7 years as a high-level account manager at Air Business Subscriptions, an international subscription fulfillment bureau based in West Sussex, UK, and New York City, that serves global magazine publishers with bespoke end-to-end data management, reporting, and customer service functions. She aims to bring her years of experience in this field to the nonprofit environmental sector to help make an impact on the organization’s reach. “I am happy to be part of this team and to work on streamlining our internal processes as well as the customer experience. We are building more efficient systems and processes to increase customer acquisition and retention, in tandem with building our network of partner organizations that serve the county.” Jessica is from Mercer County, New Jersey, and has been a resident of Peekskill since 2014.

Nick Tedrow, Operations Manager, Westchester Power Program

Nick Tedrow joined Sustainable Westchester as the Operations Manager for the Westchester Power Program in September 2021. In this role he maintains the systems and processes that have made the Westchester Power Program a success, while also contributing to the evolution of the organization’s work.“I am excited to collaborate on ideas and efforts that will further streamline and improve on the existing foundation that Westchester Power stands.”Before joining Sustainable Westchester, Nick spent 5.5 years at an equity-focused non-profit Solar PV installation company called GRID Alternatives. While there, he managed the administration of multi-million dollar state-wide incentive programs targeted at disadvantaged communities in California, among various other hats he wore. These services delivered no-cost Solar PV systems, green job training opportunities, and other energy-related technologies and financial savings to residents of the state who are most impacted by the financial and health effects of our climate crisis.Born and raised in Northern California where he went to school and worked all of his life, Nick moved with his family to Westchester County in the summer of 2021. His pursuit of a new role with an organization that shares common values with his own led him to Sustainable Westchester, where he was fortunate to find an opening that fit his background and be chosen for that position. He is excited to be putting down new roots in Ossining and hopes to bring impactful and equitable climate solutions for all the residents of his new home in Westchester County.

Please join us in congratulating and welcoming Sherrisse-Lee, Jessica, and Nick!

40 Green Street Mt. Kisco, NY 10549 United States 914-242-4725

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APPEALS CHIEF JUDGE JANET DIFIORE

“From the Westchester District Attorney’s Office to the Court of Appeals, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore has dedicated her career to the people of New York. Chief Judge DiFiore’s leadership of our state court system – especially during the unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic – has been a critical asset. I thank Judge DiFiore for her years of service and look forward to reviewing the recommendations of the Commission on Judicial Nomination as we work to appoint new leadership to the Court.” — Governor Kathy Hochul. 1:30 PM EDT

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WPCNR ON THE CORNAVIRUS TRAIL. By John F. Bailey July 10, 2022.:

Saturday new new infections in Westchester County totaled 259 in Lab positive confirmed testings bring the county total to 2,327 for the week.

New cases surged the first three days of the week above last week’s first three days and continue the mid week patter of positives doubling by Wednesday and Thursday and Friday which has been consistent the last 5 weeks. This indicates persons’ weekend activities are causing them to get sick within 1 to 2 days after the weekend socializing activities,and testing themselves or going to a testing center and having a testing labconfirm their positiveness. We cannot know how fast they are getting infected but the midweek consistent surging in positives in the County would indicate that is the case.

New positives ran 332 new positives a day for the 7 days July 3 through 9. an infection rate of 11% of those tested. Average testing per day was 3,000 a day, very low historically. There 20,854 tests analyzed by state labs in Westchester County last week.

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 FIGURES UNDERESTIMATE WESTCHESTER COVID INFECTIONS NUMBERS BY 38,466, NEW INFECTIONS BY  500 A WEEK— UNDERESTIMATES PEOPLE AT RISK FOR COVID NEW INFECTIONS  BY THOUSANDS.  4^TH UP-INFECTION WEEK IN 5 WEEKS OF HIGHER POSITIVES FOR WESTCHESTER

WPCNR CORONAVIRUS TRAIL. By John F. Bailey. July 10, 2022:

If you knew how many persons lived in Westchester a year ago by the 2020 census, wouldn’t you assume the government and the state would adjust their  calculations about covid based on the current populations of Westchester and every other county  in the country?

They are not.

The first weekly report issued last week by the Center for Disease Control is using 2010 Census Data.

The CDC report was reported a month ago by the Governor’s office of New York as updating the CDC format and put out the first edition last week.

 Westchester’s population is reported as 965,991. According to the 2020 census figure released one year ago it is 1,004,457. That is a 38,466 more persons in Westchester County, than the CDC and the Covid Tracker of NY are using.

The implication of this is that the new infections, across the country are being  under-reported by millions. In Westchester County they are under reported in the number CDC of new infections a week, 158 per 100,000 population per week. Let’s take a look.

In the last six days, July 3 through Friday, July 6 with Saturday’s figures from the New York State Covid Tracker to come out today, Sunday, means Westchester  if we have the same number of infections we had last Saturday (July 2- 247)) will have 2,315 new covid infections, compared to 2077 last week June 25 to July 2. That will make the third consecutive week of covid increases and 4^th 300 a day week in the last 5.

According to the Center for Disease Control first new weekly report of July  Westchester County is infecting at the rate of 158 persons a week per 100,000 population every 7 days.  If you multiply that by 10.04 (Westchester’s new population as of last spring, 2021 was 1,004,457), you get 10.04 x 158 that estimates Westchester should have 1,586 new infections this week.  

We don’t.

The last six days show we already have 2,068.

We have been averaging over 2,000 a week, 300 a day. Four of the last 5 weeks.

This discrepancy indicates a lag in getting figures from the states to the CDC, or at least New York State.

When the New York State Covid Tracker debuted they used the former figures from 2010, because they were the only census available. But now we have had the new numbers for every county in New York (and nationwide), for 2 years.

When I figured vaccinations for New York State when they started last January, I used the new population figure, 1,004,457, to judge the gap between fully vaccinated persons with one dose, and persons not vaccinated.

The CDC, using the 965,991 figure, inadvertently probably, gives a false sense of safety. Take a look at their chart:

Why wouldn’t the CDC and the New York Covid Tracker update the population bases by county?

Why wouldn’t the CDC and the New York Covid Tracker update them to provide more accurate presentation vaccination figures based on the true population of the moment?