United States v. Inryco, Inc.

The Government appeals the district court’s dismissal of its indictment as time barred. The indictment charged Inryco, Inc. and Western Concrete Structures Co., Inc. (Western) with a conspiracy to re strain trade in the post-tension concrete construction of the Byron, Braidwood and Beliefonte nuclear construction projects. The essence of the conspiratorial agreement was that Western would submit complementary bids on these projects to favor Inryco, and in exchange Inryco, as successful bidder, would award to Western subcontracts, purchase orders and monetary payments generated by those projects. All bids were submitted by July 31, 1974.

After reviewing the pleadings, the district court ruled as a matter of law that the conspiracy had terminated when the last bids were submitted and that the awards thereafter made to Western therefore were not during and in furtherance of the conspiracy. The government contends that the awards constituted a prime objective of the conspiracy to restrain trade and that the efforts to accomplish them resulted in continuing the conspiracy until the payments were made to Western.

We do not agree with the district court’s conclusion that as a pleading…