JAL has admitted its 6-year involvement in a price-fixing cartel:
Japan Airlines International (JAL) has agreed to plead guilty and pay a 110 million dollar criminal fine for its role in a price-fixing scandal tied to air cargo shipments, the US Justice Department announced Wednesday.
JAL’s admission of criminal wrongdoing comes after the Justice Department reached similar agreements with other carriers last year, including British Airways and Korean Air Lines.
“This price-fixing conspiracy inflicted a heavy toll on American businesses and consumers,” a senior Justice Department antitrust official, Thomas Barnett, said of the JAL settlement.
Asia’s largest carrier confirmed it had agreed to plead guilty in the case in a statement posted on its corporate website. It said it had also cooperated “fully” with the US government probe.
According to the Justice Department, JAL “engaged in a conspiracy” in the United States and other countries to cut out competition by fixing the rates on international shipments of air cargo to and from America and elsewhere.
In other news, ANA, the major Japanese airline that didn’t take part in the above-mentioned price-fixing cartel, has opened a new facility at Narita Airport that will significantly cut down on transfer time between flights.
