WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - A Japanese freight forwarding company has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $2,326,774 million criminal fine for Sherman Act violations.
The company was alleged to have fixed freight forwarding fees for air cargo shipments from Japan to the United States, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
According to the one-count felony charge filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Yamato Global Logistics conspired to fix and to impose certain freight forwarding service fees, including fuel surcharges and various security fees, charged to customers for freight forwarding shipments of cargo shipped by air from Japan to the United States from 2002 to 2007.
"Consumers ultimately were forced to pay higher prices on the goods they buy every day as a result of the noncompetitive and collusive service fees charged by these companies," said Scott D. Hammond, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division's criminal enforcement program.