BA and Virgin are both part of the Airline Group who own 42% of NATS. Both of them have managers facing jail terms. Nice owners eh?
But we don't like talking about these things do we?
Office of Fair Trading charges British Airways executives with price-fixing - Times Online
Four past and present executives of British Airways will appear in court next month in a criminal price-fixing prosecution brought by the
Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the regulator confirmed today.
A spokesman for the City of London Magistrates court said the four have been listed to appear before a judge on September 24.
In only the second criminal prosecution of its kind in the UK, the OFT has accused the four BA executives of conspiring with their counterparts at Virgin Atlantic to fix the price of fuel surcharges on long-haul flights.
Price-fixing — which was made a specific criminal offence, called the cartel offence, in 2002 — carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and unlimited fines.
BA has been fined
£270 million for its role in the cartel after a joint investigation by the OFT and the US Department of Justice. Virgin Atlantic avoided a fine after it approached the regulators to blow the whistle on the cartel.
The two airlines have also settled a
£100 million class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of passengers who were overcharged because of the cartel.
These fines alone are half of what TAG paid for their share of NATS
The Govt received £765m from the Airline Group for its share of NATS, but it had allowed the Group to borrow £700 million of that, so immediately on being PPP'd, NATS was saddled with this debt and its interest payments.
Financial & Business - NATS