Rating: 
Summary: An engaging page turner
Review: For those who enjoy "true crime" this book is a must read. Over more than 500 pages, Kurt Eichenwald walks the reader through the tangled web of a complex federal criminal investigation. Few actors in this drama, whether FBI, DOJ, the leaders at Archer-Daniels-Midland, or their competitors come out looking particularly good. While the ADM executives are largely portrayed as venal, self protective, and arrogant (no real surprise), the turf battles and inter-agency warfare conducted among the elements of Justice are sad to read. The main character, ADM executive Mark Whitacre's shenanagins will exhaust all but the most patient readers, though one can only come away with some level of frustration at the end result, where ADM executives, who Whitacre captures on type in obvious price fixing collusion, walk away with largely financial, as opposed to penal sentences. In addition, the tireless efforts of the agents assigned to the case get lost in the shuffle when the lawyers take over and immediately undermine and second guess the investigative techniques engaged in by the FBI.
Rating: 
Summary: The Firm Meets Civil Action
Review: Jonathan Harr, who wrote A Civil Action, wrote of this book, "I guarantee it'll keep you reading late into the night." Well, he was right. I stayed up several nights to finish this - dead tired but too engrossed to put it down.If you like the complexity of a corporate legal case (a la A Civil Action), and you also enjoy the thrill of criminal plot twists and illegal scheming (a la The Firm), you, too, will be up late. Almost immediately such a reader will reach the can't-put-it-down stage. Added to the fun of the read is the odd awareness that this is real - these are real people involved in real corporate crimes and real political influence. The treatment of law enforcement, the corporate principals, the lawyers, and the secondary players, was refreshingly objective. One never gets the sense that Eichenwald has some skewed perspective (this is in contrast to A Civil Action, where the author had developed the story while tagging along with the plaintiffs' attorneys). This book involves key players at every level of the FBI - including Louis Freeh, and the Justice Department, and A.D.M., without the pain of unneeded blather; all are part of the game, and it's worth getting to know them. The only awkward moment comes very late in the book, when the author actually becomes involved a bit in the story. But the convention may have been unavoidable given the circumstances, so it is only a bit of a bump. Arguably, some of the details may have been left out. But in defense of the author - this is not some fiction piece where every detail is forced to fit perfectly to some final climax. The detail is worth it here, and does not detract from the story in the least. Oftern critics insist that this or that book is a "page-turner." Well, for me, this time the tag really fits. This is also the stuff of a fine movie, which surely will follow.
Rating:
Summary: Would be great fiction...and it's true!
Review: The story starts out as a somewhat interesting investigation of Archer Daniels Midland price fixing, and then delves into the fascinating web of deceipt, back stabbing, and a bizarre plot to become CEO of ADM by Mark Whitacre, a wunderkind ADM executive, and FBI informant in the price fixing investigation. Eichenwald give little hints along the way that there's more than meets the eye, and by the end of the book, reveals the extent of the plot at ADM and by Whitacre that has to be read to be believed. The fairly arcane and complicated scheming throughout the book comes across fairly transparent, where a lesser writer would tend to make it fairly dense reading.
Rating:
Summary: Truth IS Stranger than Fiction!
Review: This book should be required reading in every MBA school in America. Every student who wants to work for Corporate America needs to read this. If nothing else than to see how their decisions can affect even the most powerful companies. This book details an incredibly complex scheme by what is, in essence, the most politically connected corporation in America to fix prices in the lysine market. Lysine is used by the livestock industry to grow animals larger and faster. But, the conspiracy hardly stops there. ADM used similar price fixing techniques in other food additives they produced. This is just the beginning of the criminal and unethical behavior of the Archer Daniels Midland Company and the management of that company, not to mention the behavior of the companies that ADM is doing "business" with. Mr. Eichenwald has done an excellent job of detailing this complex conspiracy and telling an incredible, and often entertaining, story. You'd swear that this was a work of fiction. When reading this book, don't be afraid to go back and even put the book down for a few minutes to consider what you've just read. This is a very complex book. Which isn't to say it is difficult reading. It is not, but there are many details to sift through and the details sometimes become more mind-boggling as you go on.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible true story of the dark side of the free market
Review: This is the story of Mark Whitacre and Archer-Daniels-Midland, and of a price-fixing case that took years to bring to court but which ultimately, in all its ramifications, netted the US government over a billion dollars in fines. It's an enthralling book--I found myself staying up late to finish it, as if it were a thriller--but it's much more exciting than any thriller could be. ADM sells chemicals and feed additives on a huge scale. Mark Whitacre was the executive in charge of their lysine operation, and for reasons that only became completely clear years later he began talking to the FBI in 1992. Soon he found himself as a cooperating witness, taping his colleagues covertly as they fixed lysine prices with Japanese and European companies. At one point, Eichenwald notes, they reach an agreement to lock up the entire Canadian market (worth about $100 million) at an artificially inflated price; it takes them ten seconds, and comes as a postscript to a more global price fixing agreement. The story is convoluted because it gradually became clear that Whitacre wasn't telling the entire truth. Eichenwald has made the decision here to tell the story more or less as it appeared to the FBI, rather than telling it from Whitacre's point of view. This means that the reader may not find out the true meaning of some of Whitacre's actions until quite late in the book. Eichenwald's approach actually makes the story more exciting--it's this that gives it its thriller-like feel, since the reader fairly soon realizes there are more surprises in store. Few readers will guess the full truth before Eichenwald reveals it, however. Ultimately convictions and fines were obtained. One wonders whether ADM has really changed, or has just gotten more careful; certainly the book makes it clear that consumers were cheated out of billions of dollars without a second thought, and it's also clear that such behaviour was rife throughout the food and feed industry. There are also strong hints that the Justice Department was susceptible to pressure to ease up on the case. Eichenwald, who sticks scrupulously to what he can prove from the innumerable tapes and transcripts relating to this case, does not speculate, but it's hard to believe the industry is immaculately clean. The free market won't seem quite so free or so desirable to you when you read this, assuming you ever believed corporate America was a good guy in the first place. A great book, and an eye-opener. Strongly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating story, brilliantly written
Review: Were this a review of a novel, I would criticize it for an overcomplicated, convoluted and essentially unbelievable plot. But it is a true story, one that will rivet your attention and leave your head spinning. The basic story, that the large agri-business Archer Daniels Midland - ADM - was caught in an international price-fixing scam for food additives would merit coverage in Business Week but little else. The key to the story is the informant himself, Mark Whitacre, the President of one of ADM's largest and most successful divisions. Manipulative, deceitful, delusional, sociopathic ... these are accurate but inadequate descriptions of the man who sucked ADM, the FBI and the DOJ into a five-year whirlwind, played out on the headlines of every newspaper in the country; he will suck you in, too. Who hasn't wondered what kind of knucklehead responds to those crazy scam letters and emails from Nigeria? Actually, so many Americans with access to large amounts of cash responded in the 1980s and 1990s that the FBI had to set up a special liaison office in Lagos to deal with them. Meet Mark Whitacre: brilliant biochemist, builder and President of a hugely successful division of a multi-national corporation; and hopelessly entangled by his crazy belief that he could hit the jackpot by aiding corrupt Nigerian officials. And more, much, much more. The story will sweep you along, from one unbelievable plot twist to another, not reaching a crescendo until the very end. Great fun. But also a great testament to the American justice system. Battered on all sides by the media and politicians and wealthy corporate defendants and with an utterly unreliable witness, the FBI and the DOJ persevere and see their case through to what seems like a very satisfactory conclusion, all the compromises and plea bargains notwithstanding. Eichenwald deserves great credit: not only for his real-time coverage of the story in the New York Times and the writing of this brilliant book, but also for the fact that he nearly simultaneously was covering the astonishing demise of Bache Halsey Stuart Shields in the Serpent On The Rock, another amazingly readable true story of human frailty.
Rating:
Summary: Truth is Stranger than Fiction
Review: Corporate espionage, money laundering, greed, and one of the most bizarre whistle-blowing cases the FBI had ever seen. So is the twisted tale told in Kurt Eichenwald's The Informant. And most bizarre of all, its all true. Eichenwald, a senior writer for the New York Times, recalls the events that occurred during the 1990's at the Archer Daniels Midland Company when one of its own executives, Mark Whitacre, became a mole for the FBI. According to Whitacre, the company was working with international competitors to fix prices globally on their products, specifically lysine, a feed additive. Archer Daniels Midland is a Fortune 500 company located in Decatur, Illinois, and was at the time led by its chairman and chief executive officer, Dwayne Andreas, a politically connected millionaire. ADM is one of the world's largest grain producers, boasting that it is the "Supermarket to the World." Among other things, the company supplies many food manufacturers around the world with food additives such as citric acid, lysine, and corn syrup. To maintain large profit margins, however, the company had acquired many corrupt and illegal practices, all to be dissolved by Mark Whitacre. Whitacre began his career at ADM at a relatively young age. With a doctorate in biochemistry, he was the president of the bioproducts division at ADM. Whitacre began his work with the FBI in 1992 when ADM began investigating corporate espionage by a competitor. It was believed that a major Japanese competitor, Ajinomoto, had planted a virus in one of ADM's lysine plants. The virus was believed to be the cause of abnormally low production levels. It was further suspected that the competitor had an employee working undercover at ADM to sabotage the plant. Once the investigation began, however, Whitacre became nervous that he would look suspicious because he spent so much time communicating with the foreign competitors on other matters, including illegal price fixing. He was scared that he would be fingered as a suspect. Because of this fear, and others to be disclosed later, Whitacre broke down and told the FBI of the illegal deals going on at the company. The FBI was curious from the beginning however as to why such a highly paid executive would be willing to cooperate with the FBI to bring down such a major conspiracy. However, they were thrilled and anxious to begin work with Whitacre; it was rare to have such a prominent member of a company working as an informant to the FBI. Whitacre agreed to work with the FBI so long as he was granted immunity. The FBI in turn agreed, so long as Whitacre agreed to be honest and disclose any and all wrong doing that he was aware of at ADM and cooperate with the FBI to document the crimes. It seemed like a relatively simple plan, but nothing in this case would ever be simple...
Rating:
Summary: Dynamite true story of corporate crimes
Review: This is a non-stop action-packed book about nefarious corporate crimes at ADM, an enormous food products company based in Decatur, Illinois. This book follows the amazing (and at many times unbelievable, but true) twists and turns of events in the years following an initial FBI investigation into suspected corporate espionage at ADM. The investigation quickly led to price fixing and anti-trust issues based on information supplied by "informant" Mark Whitacre. And it moves from there into other corporate crimes, driven by greed. At first the story seems to be about a simple investigation into price fixing by ADM and many of its international "competitors" (even though the company viewed its customers as the true enemy). The book is written as the events turned out for the FBI, so even though the reader is presented with Whitacre being a strange man, the reader is led to believe that it is because he is stressed about being an informant, worried about being caught by ADM and threatened (as he saw in many fictional movies and books). But it turns into much more and all is not as it seems. Parts of this book deal with complex financial and corporate issues, but Eichenwald deals with them in a way that is easy to understand. The book is an incredibly easy read and even though the length can look danuting, I found myself flying through the book and always wanting to see what happens next. So in a sense it is an amazing page turner, just as much as any best selling thrilling novel. I highly recommend this and be warned that this will make you skeptical of corporate greed and misdeeds and you'll know that many corporate exces were all criminals long before the downfall of Enron.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting look into the White Collar World
Review: Definitely not Grisham, but all of the intrigue is still there. In fact, many of the events that take place would never fly in a fiction work...they'd be thought too outrageous. For Eichenwald to keep me, a mostly science-fiction reader captivated throughout all six-hundred pages is reason enough for me to recommend the book to most anyone. Steadily entertaining development for you action-oriented readers and just enough to whet the appetite of any conspiracy theorists out there.
Rating:
Summary: PURE GREED
Review: If you like to read books about business and industry this is a superb book to read it is unbelieveabe that the informant the person bookis abouut could be such a moron and have such business power
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