Japanese Freight Forwarders Agree to Pay $18.9 Million for Price Fixing
Two air freight forwarding companies in Japan agreed to plead guilty and pay the U.S. a total of $18.9 million in criminal fines in connection to a price fixing conspiracy, said the Justice Department in a press release. "K" Line Logistics will pay about $3.5 million and Yusen Logistics will pay $15.4 million, said the DOJ.
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According to charges filed separately March 8 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the two companies "engaged in a conspiracy to fix and to impose certain freight forwarding service fees, including fuel surcharges and various security fees, charged to customers for services provided in connection with air freight forwarding shipments of cargo shipped by air from Japan to the United States from about September 2002 until at least November 2007," said the Justice Department. So far, 16 companies have either pleaded guilty or agreed to plead guilty and have agreed to pay criminal fines totaling more than $120 million, it said.
The joint investigation into freight forwarding was done by the Antitrust Division's National Criminal Enforcement Section, the FBI's Washington Field Office and the Department of Commerce's Office of Inspector General.