Bipartisan Corporate Crime Fighting by the States: How Blue and Red State Attorneys General Cooperate in Addressing Big-Business Misconduct

Recognizing the difficulty of bringing actions against companies with abundant financial resources and lawyers, in the 1980s many state attorneys general (AGs) began to cooperate with one another. While initially this cooperation was limited to sharing information about their own separate investigations, eventually groups of state AGs later started to prosecute cases jointly in what became known as multistate litigation. Though partisan divisions in the United States remain strong, multistate AG litigation is an arena in which political differences can be put aside in pursuit of a common effort to fight price-fixing, foreclosure abuses, the sale of unsafe drugs and other forms of corporate wrongdoing. This report offers a review of multistate litigation over the past two decades, revealing that state AGs have become critical actors in combating corporate misconduct.