Jo Tankers pleads guilty to parcel tanker price fixing
The U.S. Department of Justice said Jo Tankers B.V., an operator of parcel tankers based in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands, has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $19.5-million criminal fine for participating in an international cartel that rigged prices for parcel tanker shipping.
According to charges filed in a U.S. district court in Philadelphia, the cartel allocated customers, rigged bids, and fixed prices on parcel tanker affreightment contracts for shipments of specialty liquids to and from the U.S. and elsewhere.
As a result of the conspiracy, consumers in the market for international parcel tanker shipping services paid non-competitive and higher prices for parcel tanker shipping between mid-1998 and the end of 2002, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Jo Tankers, which has agreed to cooperate with an ongoing Justice Department Antitrust Division investigation, will pay its $19.5 million fine over fine years.
On Jan. 7, Hendrikus van Westenbrugge, a former co-managing director of Jo Tankers, was sentenced to serve three months in jail and pay a $75,000 fine for his part in the conspiracy, the Justice Department said.
The maximum penalty for a corporation convicted of a violation of the Sherman Act is a fine equal to twice the pecuniary gain derived from the crime, or twice the pecuniary loss suffered by victims of the crime.