Australia: ACCC launches criminal cartel case against Japanese shipper NYK

The competition watchdog has for the first time used its power to launch criminal prosecutions for cartel behaviour in a case filed against Japanese shipping group NYK.

Federal Court records showed the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission filed a criminal indictment of NYK on Thursday.

It is the first time the ACCC has used its criminal cartel powers, which attract stiff penalties including jail time, since they were granted in 2009 following the watchdog’s exposure of collusion between packaging giants Visy and Amcor.

If found guilty, corporations face swingeing fines of up to $10 million, 10 per cent of their annual turnover or three times their ill-gotten gains, whichever is larger, while individuals can be jailed for up to 10 years.

Last night, an NYK spokeswoman said: “I do not feel that it is appropriate to comment at this stage other than to note that NYK has co-operated fully with the ACCC during the course of its investigation.”

The exact charges against NYK, which stands for Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha, are not known because the ACCC’s indictment was not available from the Federal Court this afternoon.

However, in March the US Department of Justice said it had jailed an executive of the company, Susumu Tanaka, for 15 months for his role in a price-fixing and bid-rigging conspiracy over international shipping of roll-on, roll-off cargo such as cars and trucks.

This followed NYK paying a $US59.4m fine in December after pleading guilty over its involvement in the same conspiracy from 1997 until 2012.

Four companies, including NYK, have pleaded guilty to participating in the RO-RO cartel and have been fined a total of $US230m, the DoJ said this week.

Eight executives have been charged, with four, including Tanaka, jailed and the remainder ­“fugitives from justice”.

The DoJ’s latest scalp came on Wednesday when Norwegian line Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics pleaded guilty to price fixing and agreed to pay a $US98.9m ($130m) fine.

In documents filed with the US District Court in Baltimore, Maryland, the DoJ said that at meetings of the cartel participants “discussed and exchanged prices for certain customer tenders so as not to undercut each other’s prices”.

Full Content: The Australian

Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world.