Seven companies fined for price-fixing with cargo handling cartel

 

MyCC says the seven companies had literally been ‘stealing money from the pockets of businesses and consumers’.

PETALING JAYA: Seven companies have been fined a total of RM1.04 million for engaging in a price-fixing cartel over handling services for import and export cargoes at Port Klang.

The Malaysia Competition Commission (MyCC) said the fines imposed ranged from RM26,363 to RM336,369.

The seven companies are SAL Agencies Sdn Bhd, WCS Warehousing Sdn Bhd, Regional Synergy (M) Sdn Bhd, Intrexim Sdn Bhd, Pioneerpac Sdn Bhd, Prima Warehousing Sdn Bhd, and Interocean Warehousing Services Sdn Bhd.

“During our investigation from May 2017 to December 2019, we found that they had formed a cartel and colluded in fixing the surcharges for handling services for ‘long length and heavy lift’ cargoes among themselves,” MyCC’s CEO Iskandar Ismail said in a statement.

“At the time of MyCC’s raids against the operators, it was uncovered that the operators had created a WhatsApp group and began their discussion on fixing the surcharges despite acknowledging that they are all competitors in the warehouse services market.”

He said the companies had submitted their representations to MyCC from December 2020 to March this year, and the commission had concluded that “the conduct of all the warehouse operators constitutes an infringement under Section 4 of the Competition Act 2010”.

“MyCC has always given high priority to the investigation and punishment of (those involved in) anti-competitive agreements, especially price and quota cartels, customer or territorial allocation agreements and bid rigging.

“The perpetrators of these cartels, quite literally, are stealing money from the pockets of businesses and consumers.”

He said MyCC had instructed the seven companies to distance themselves from price-fixing agreements that may disrupt competition in the handling of “long length and heavy lift” of import and export cargoes. - FMT