Several large air freight companies have been fined by the EU for price-fixing. Fourteen freight forwarders were fined a total of 169 million for operating an air freight cartel on several routes. The investigation centred on freight forwarding services from the UK to outside the European Economic Area (EEA), from within the EEA to the US, from China to the EEA and from China and Hong Kong to the EEA.
The forwarding groups had co-ordinated their prices and surcharges, using code names to conceal their collusion – which included a “Gardening Club”, in which price-fixing conversations used the names of vegetables like asparagus and baby courgettes as code words.