A PAC-3 MSE launches July 1, 2024 photo. (Photo courtesy of US Army).
WASHINGTON —The US has invoked the Defense Production Act to help munitions suppliers “essentially collude” without breaking antitrust laws and find ways to ramp up production, according to Michael Cadenazzi, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy.
“It’s a way for us to communicate and leverage industry,” Cadenazzi told an audience at a Center for a New American Security event today.
“In this particular case,” he later added, “our interest is using voluntary agreements as a way to bring industry in in an antitrust environment to go ahead and have conversations with them. For us to articulate problems to them around nasty issues in the supply chain and the industrial base that allow them to communicate and work together, essentially collude.”
Collusion in business is a secretive, anti-competitive agreement between rival companies to manipulate the market for mutual gain, and parties found guilty can face steep fines or jail time.
