There is a different side of the advertising and graphic arts business that many of us are aware of but few speak of: the often-corrupt partnership between some advertising agencies and some printers. For this article, I conducted a dozen interviews with executives, production managers and art directors from advertising agencies as well as executives from prepress and printing companies. Additionally, I have been in contact with Justice Department trial attorney Rebecca Meiklejohn, who is heading up the Department’s own investigations.

Over the past several years the Justice Department Antitrust Division's New York Field Office has been investigating the cozy relationship between New York advertising agencies and the prepress and printing companies that serve them. The investigation is being conducted in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Services Criminal Investigation unit.

In a recent case, executives at Color Wheel were among a group of printing and prepress executives who were found guilty of conspiring with employees of Grey Global to bilk Grey’s clients out of millions of dollars. Grey’s clients were billed huge sums of money for work that never took place, tickets to the World Series and other entertainment expenses. In some cases, when particular jobs for a Grey customer would run over budget, Grey executives would allow Color Wheel to fraudulently shift the over-budget amount onto jobs for a different Grey client.