”Our goal in the FBI is to expose the back room deals and secret handshakes and to stop the culture in some businesses that allows these crimes to take place,” said special agent Steve Vogt after Toru Otoda, a ‘K’ Line executive, was sentenced to 18 months in US prison and fined USD20,000 in March 2015. ‘K’ Line was ordered to pay USD67.7 million.
American car buyers have filed at the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) a class action lawsuit against Japanese, European, and South American ro-ro operators, claiming they were overcharged for new automobiles after the carriers conspired to fix transportation rates.
Named in the suit are NYK Line, MOL, Hoegh Autoliners, Nissan Motor Car Carrier, ‘K’ Line, Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics, Eukor Car Carriers, and CSAV.
Ro-ro vessel operators and their executives have been fined millions of dollars in an ongoing international probe investigating price-fixing and bid-rigging. The US investigation has been looking into collusion among car carriers as far back as 1997.