In a notable antitrust case, the U.S. government this week announced charges against four different Chinese shipping container companies, accusing them of conspiring to fix prices and manipulate container markets over the past five years.
The companies in question are China International Marine Containers (CIMC), Singamas Container Holdings, Shanghai Universal Logistics Equipment, and CXIC Group Containers. Collectively, they control a large portion of global shipping containers, which makes the scheme a big deal to prosecutors, who say shipping operations were further impacted even mid a massively disruptive pandemic: Covid.
Details of the indictment against the Chinese container companies
According to the indictment, the container companies conspired to implement price-fixing practices primarily during the period between 2019 and 2021, and their actions dominated during the Covid pandemic era. They also colluded with the goal of reducing container output, through as recently as 2024.
The indictment, brought by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ), represents a significant antitrust case by the U.S. government – one of the most serious of the last decade. Several employees at the container companies were also indicted as part of the indictment. The charges are for violating Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, a law that was passed in 1890 to help outlaw monopolies and other business cartels.
The news of the indictment came just days after U.S. President Donald Trump returned from a summit in China, where he met Chinese President Xi Jinping and pledged economic and trade cooperation, even as little progress was reported.
In a statement, the U.S. DOJ was quoted as saying: “The multi-year conspiracy roughly doubled the prices of standard shipping containers between 2019 and 2021, increasing the container manufacturers’ profits approximately one hundredfold during the Covid-19 pandemic and global supply chain crisis.”
How did the price-fixing scheme take place?
According to the indictment, before the Covid pandemic began, the container companies began their collusion during Spring 2019, with hidden cameras watching production capacity of new containers. The companies sought to limit the number of new containers created and brought into service. The goal would be to reduce container volume, and limit the number of physical containers, so that the market could be manipulated and controlled by the companies in question.
Last month, law enforcement arrested Vick Nam Hing Ma, an executive at Singamas Container Holdings, one of the companies in the indictment, while he was in France. Although Ma was indicted weeks ago, the new indictment also contained a superseding indictment tying Ma to the larger conspiracy as part of the broader indictment.
