Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) has pleaded guilty to price-fixing and was ordered to pay almost £70 million for breaching competition laws.
Three other companies have reportedly followed WWL’s footsteps and have also pleaded guilty.
Several former and current executives for WWL have been indicted on charges of anti-competitive behaviour over accusations of price-fixing for some of its international ocean shipping. Former executives were apparently charged in November 2016 along with a current executive as well.
A Justice Department spokesperson said that the indictment was, “yet another step in the Division’s efforts to restore competition in the shipping industry.”
They continued to say that their division will be “working to ensure that its executives who conspired to suppress competition at the expense of consumers will be held accountable.”
Legal probes into the shipping industry over price-fixing suspicions apparently began in 2012 and have since demanded shipping information from twenty of the world’s largest container-shipping operators.
Maersk Line and Hapag-Lloyd were also among the global operators to be probed.
The huge investigation looked into whether shipping operators were price-fixing by sharing port calls and vessels to save potentially billions on annual operating costs. In October, the Fiat Chysler Automobiles (FCA) complained and alleged global price-fixing in shipping operations that has cost the company millions. The major car company (currently wrapped up in their own accusations over diesel emissions cheating) said that, because of agreements between shipping operators, Fiat has had to pay more when shipping its cars out to markets overseas. They allege that those illegal agreements include market sharing, bid-rigging and price fixes.
The company is seeking financial compensation, with allegations against major shipping providers that includes:
- Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics AS
- EUKOR Car Carriers Inc
- Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha
- Mitsui O.S.K Lines Ltd
- Compania Sud Americana de Vapores
- Hoegh Autoliners AS
All of these shippers have reportedly pleaded guilty to allegations of participating in illegal agreements that contravene anti-competition laws.
Price-fixing and other anti-competitive agreements can be very harmful for the market and to the consumer. Businesses should be competing freely to ensure that their customers are provided with a choice of services that suit them, and at a price that they can afford. By price-fixing, anyone who wants to ship things overseas may end up with no choice but to pay an expensive inflated fee.