Limitations Period
RICO claims are subject to a four-year statute of limitations. The United States Supreme Court adopted this limitations period and applied it to all RICO claims in the case of Agency Holding Corp. v Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U.S. 143 (1987). Because RICO did not have its own statute of limitations, common law rules dictated that RICO claims should be subject to the statute of limitations applied to the most analogous claim under state law. The Supreme Court did not favor this approach because it would have resulted in civil RICO claims being subject to 50 different limitations periods, and no one could determine the limitations period until a particular claim was brought in a particular jurisdiction. The Supreme Court decided it was more fair and efficient to borrow the limitations period from another federal statute, which would result in a uniform statute of limitations period regardless of the jurisdiction in which a particular RICO claim was filed. Because Congress essentially copied RICO's civil remedy provision (18 U.S.C. § 1964(c)) from the civil remedies provision of the Clayton Anti-trust Act, 15 U.S.C. § 15(a), the Supreme Court adopted the Clayton Act's four year statute of limitations as the limitations period applicable to all federal civil RICO claims.
http://www.ricoact.com/ricoact/nutshell.asp#ricoThe holding in the case states:
(I listed the citation after the holding for those who have access to Lexis or Westlaw)
1. The 4-year statute of limitations applicable to Clayton Act civil enforcement actions, 15 U. S. C. § 15b, applies in RICO civil enforcement actions. Because the predicate acts that may establish a civil RICO violation are far ranging and cannot be reduced to a single generic classification, and because important RICO concepts were unknown to common law, there is a need for a uniform limitations period for civil RICO in order to avoid intolerable uncertainty for parties and time-consuming litigation. The Clayton Act offers the closest analogy to civil RICO, in light of similarities in purpose and structure between the statutes, and the clear legislative intent to pattern RICO's civil enforcement provision on the Clayton Act's. Moreover, the Clayton Act provides a far closer analogy to RICO than any state statute. It is unlikely that Congress intended state "catchall" statutes of limitations to apply or that such statutes would fairly serve the federal interests vindicated by RICO, and, in those States that do not have catchalls, any selection of a state statute would be at odds with RICO's sui generis nature. RICO cases commonly involve interstate transactions, and the possibility of a multiplicity of applicable state limitations periods presents the dangers of forum shopping and of complex, expensive, and unnecessary litigation. Application of a uniform federal period also avoids the possibility that application of unduly short state periods would thwart the legislative purpose of providing an effective remedy. Section 15b is preferable to the "catchall" federal 5-year statute of limitations that applies in RICO criminal prosecutions, since that statute does not reflect any congressional balancing of the competing equities unique to RICO civil enforcement actions. Pp. 146-156.
2. Because this litigation was filed less than four years after Malley-Duff's termination as Crown Life's agent, which is the earliest time Malley-Duff's RICO action could have accrued, the litigation is timely. Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U.S. 143
