(CNN) -- Watching the premiere of "The Informant!" -- the Matt Damon movie about a high-level FBI mole at a large multinational company -- was the mole himself, Mark Whitacre.



Mark Whitacre, right, at the premiere of 'The Informant' with Matt Damon.



The movie is a dark comic take on the three years Whitacre -- a former divisional president of Archer Daniels Midland, the US-based food additive giant -- spent working undercover to break a global price-fixing conspiracy.



Whitacre recognized real episodes in his life on the big screen, such as trying to fix a hidden tape player during a meeting and his delusional belief he would be made CEO of the company as a reward for his undercover work.



But what you won't see in the movie are the events of August 9, 1995, six weeks after an FBI raid blew the case into public attention. It was two days after ADM fired Whitacre and accused him of embezzling millions from the company. His FBI partners for the previous three years would no longer speak with him.



On that day, Whitacre sat alone in his car with its engine running inside a closed garage and slowly lost consciousness. He was hoping to end his life as surely as he had ended his career. A gardener found him unconscious.



Some scenes just can't be played for laughs. "There was nothing comical in the reality of the story," said Whitacre, who eventually spent nearly nine years in prison for his role in the price-fixing scheme and revelations he siphoned off $9 million from the company while he was working for the FBI.



For Whitacre, 'The Informant!' is a study in his own mental illness, as he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after hospitalization for his suicide attempt. His meeting with Damon at the premiere was the first time the pair met. Damon told him he hoped they portrayed his illness in a sensitive way, Whitacre said.



"He didn't want to talk to a 52-year-old Mark Whitacre while preparing for the role, the Mark Whitacre who went to prison, who has been treated for bipolar disorder, who is now COO of a company," said Whitacre, who is now an executive for a small food supplement maker. "He wanted to portray the 35-year-old Mark Whitacre, otherwise it would make it difficult to portray the delusions I had at that time."



The fix is in



For companies and regulators, the 1997 conviction of ADM was a landmark event, the first antitrust action in the United States since World War II and a case that has spurred price-fixing investigations around the world. "As a result of this case, the Department of Justice and the FBI started looking around to see if they could find any other cases like this," said Dean Paisley, a retired FBI agent who supervised the undercover ADM work.



"This used to be relatively unusual until the (ADM) case came to light," said John Connor, a Purdue University researcher on cartel activity, who was an expert witness in the government's case against ADM. "Back in 1993 you'd see maybe one or two global (price-fixing schemes) being discovered ... in the past three years or so, there are about 50 a year."



Price-fixing schemes -- where a cartel of manufacturers inflate prices against market demand -- cost consumers untold millions each year. In the ADM case, it was found that in the three-year period of investigation the company's cartel activity with manufacturers in Japan and Korea inflated prices by at least $200 million.



The ADM case resulted in a record $100 million fine in 1997 -- a figure long since dwarfed. Last month Japanese company Epson agreed to pay $26 million for its role in price-fixing LCD panels used in mobile phones in the U.S. Several other companies, including Sharp, LG and Hitachi, have already pleaded guilty in the case and paid fines of more than $600 million. Just last week, the Hungarian government fined Visa Europe, MasterCard and seven commercial banks
What was ADM prosecuted for? was anyone charged What kind of investigations have skyrocketed? What case was a landmark in price-fixing in global antitrust prosecution? What kind of investigations have skyrocketed since the ADM scam?
embezzling millions from the company. Whitacre price-fixing the 1997 conviction of ADM price-fixing
question: What was ADM prosecuted for?, answer: embezzling millions from the company. | question: was anyone charged, answer: Whitacre | question: What kind of investigations have skyrocketed?, answer: price-fixing | question: What case was a landmark in price-fixing in global antitrust prosecution?, answer: the 1997 conviction of ADM | question: What kind of investigations have skyrocketed since the ADM scam?, answer: price-fixing