On September 26, 2014 Japanese transportation company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd. (K-Line) agreed to plead guilty to price fixing, bid rigging and allocating customers for international ocean shipping services for “roll-on, roll-off” cargo. K-Line will be fined $67.7 million. Roll-on, roll-off cargo is a special type of ocean shipping for cars, trucks, agricultural and construction equipment, and other objects that can be rolled on and rolled off a vessel. Roll-on, roll-off cargo does not involve shipping containers.
K-Line pleaded guilty to one count—a violation of Section One of the Sherman Act. The plea agreement states K-Line participated in the conspiracy from at least February 1997 until at least September 2012. The conspiracy involved customers and shipping routes both to and from the United States at the Port of Baltimore and other ports. The conspiracy regarding roll-on, roll-off ocean shipping involved only deep-sea (or trans-ocean) shipping. It did not include short-sea or coastal water freight shipping.
K-Line and its co-conspirators attended meetings and engaged in communications to discuss bids and tenders, including refraining from competing for certain bids and tenders for ocean shipping; to allocate customers by refraining from competing for each other’s existing business on certain routes; and to discuss prices. K-Line acted on these illegal restraints of trade by submitting in accordance with its agreement with co-conspirators and providing roll-on, roll-of shipping services at supra-competitive rates.
K-Line’s guilty plea is the second plea agreement in the Department of Justice’s investigation into the international shipping cartel for roll-on, roll-off cargo. In February 2014, Chilean company, Compania Sud Americana de Vapores SA pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $8.9 million criminal fine.
