Qantas Likely to Have Price Fixed
By Mark Schliebs (News.com)
August 02, 2007 09:32pm
QANTAS may be facing massive penalties after admitting it was "likely" it had engaged in price-fixing of the type that saw British Airways fined a total of $643.96m for anti-competitive behaviour last night.
During the trans-Atlantic investigation into the collusion between BA, Korean Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic and Lufthansa to set prices, Qantas management handed over documents to the US Department of Justice (DoJ), which showed possible breaches of competition law.
In a later company document from the failed takeover bid by Air Partners Australia dated February 2007 and seen by NEWS.com.au, Qantas admitted the DoJ investigation had found likely breaches in non-passenger services.
"During this investigation Qantas learned that the practice adopted by Qantas Freight and the cargo industry generally, to fix and impose cargo fuel surcharges is likely to have breached relevant competition laws," the document said.
"Qantas has been co-operating fully with all regulators and will continue to provide information to assist with their investigations."
Previous to this Qantas had only admitted that there "may" have been breaches.
Qantas management has categorically denied involvement in price-fixing on passenger services.
In February of this year court cases were launched in the US and Australia alleging anti-competitive Qantas behaviour in the freight and cargo sector.
The sums being extracted from British Airlines in the US and Britain would give the national carrier reason to worry.
Qantas has refused to be drawn on the matter of damages except that it "expects that it will take at least 12 months before it is possible to quantify any direct or indirect liability associated with these matters."