European Court of Justice upholds fines against major forwarders.

A number of major freight forwarders have lost their appeal against fines imposed by the European comission for participating in cartels in the international air freight forwarding services sector.

The orignal fines were imposed against Kuehne & Nagel International, Schenker, Deutsche Bahn, Panalpina World Transport (Holding), Ceva Freight (UK) and EGL. Ceva Freight & EGL accepted the original fines and the appeals issued against the rest were in the main upheld by the European Court of Justice.

The judgement is covered in this press release from the Courts of Justice of the European Union and centres around :

• The New Export System (NES) Cartel concerning an agreement by a number of freight forwarders to introduce a surcharge for NEW declerations.
• The Advanced Manifest System (AMS) Cartel concerning an agreement by a number of freight forwarders to introduce a surcharge for the electronic communication of data to the United States authorities.
• The Currecncy Adjustment Factor (CAF) cartel which used the change by the government in China on how their local currecny would no longer be linked to the US Dollar to amend the way they negotiated contracts to factor in a CAF surcharge.
• The peak season surcharge (PSS) cartel which used a temporary rate adjustment factor to maintain margins when demand increased and capacity remained flat.

UTI Worldwide, UTI Nederland & UTI Worldwide(UK) according to the linked press release has had their fines reduced as part of the AMS Cartel slightly. The total fine still remains in excess of EUR 2.9 million.

If you are interested in reading the actual court documents a link from the press release can be found at the bottom of the document detailing against each indvidual freight forwarding company included in the appeal.