An American organization, Freedom Watch, has filed an antitrust complaint against the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries over the surging fuel prices that have injured Americans under Joe Biden’s economy.
Freedom Watch is run by Larry Klayman, who as a young lawyer was on the trial team at the Department of Justice that broke up the AT&T monopoly during the Reagan administration.
He said, of the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Florida, “President Joe Biden, having created with his economic policies and executive orders, a greater dependence on foreign oil, resulting in huge price increases for the purchase of gasoline, has given a green light to OPEC to collude and fix prices and divide markets to price gouge the consumer. Characteristically and historically, officials of both the Democrat and Republican parties just talk a good game about the illegal pricing practices of OPEC but do nothing to combat it.”
He further noted, “Among the members of OPEC are radical Islamic states which are either state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran, or those who finance terrorism, such as Saudi Arabia. These nations are no friend of American interests.”
He explained the case is intended to halt the harm to America, where gasoline prices are significantly higher than just a year ago, and in a few locations have surpassed $6 a gallon.
“It is indeed reprehensible that our own government is doing little to nothing to combat the current price of about $74.20 per barrel of oil, which is expected to rise to over $120.00 dollars per barrel in 2022, increasing rampant inflation and further crippling our economy and the purses of our citizens. It’s time that the American people take matters into their own legal hands,” he said.
The Biden administration, in fact, has taken several steps during its first year in power to create obstacles to providing energy to Americans, from shutting down pipeline projects to eliminating the option to drill for energy on federal lands. Instead, he wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on “green” projects.
Administration officials have, in fact, noted that the cost of “green” energy is higher than that of fossil fuels, so raising the costs of those resources makes “green” projects more attractive.
The complaint charges that the increase in fuel costs, in violation of antitrust law, is “part of a calculated strategy to advance the constituent members of OPEC’s latent war against Western democratic interests, since political actions, overt terrorist acts, and other means have thus far not produced the ‘desired’ results and ‘cleverly’ adds economic terrorism to their panoply of weapons.”
The filing explains it is brought under Section 1 of the Sherman Act and Sections 4 and 16 of the Clayton Act.
“It arises out of the role of Defendant, OPEC, in a conspiracy with its members … and additional co-conspirators in an admitted price fixing scheme to raise, fix, and stabilize the price of gasoline and other petroleum products in the United States.”
It charges that OPEC is organized as an entity in Austria, but because that’s in the European Union, its companies must abide by the treaties of the EU.
It has extended “its anticompetitive acts and practices directly onto United States soil,” the filing states. “Using its various suppliers as instrumentalities of its unlawful scheme, OPEC has entered the United States and this district for the purpose and with the effect of bringing to fruition its unlawful scheme to sell gasoline and other petroleum products to customers in the United States at anticompetitive prices.”
It alleges that OPEC is in violation of both Sherman and Clayton acts, governing monopolies and business links.
It seeks an order from the court enjoining OPEC “from continued violations of the antitrust laws.”
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