UK officials to charge four British Airways executives

It has been revealed that the United Kingdom’s Office of Fair Trading has decided to charge four British Airways executives-three of whom no longer work for the flag carrier-with price fixing. We reported last week that it was likely that the Office would take this course of action, but according to the London Times, an official public announcement will be made tomorrow. If the OFT does, in fact, go ahead and presses charges against the four executives, it will make British history, as no similar incident has occurred against other carriers. The OFT believes that four British Airways executives may have conspired with Virgin Atlantic, its main competitor on UK to US transatlantic routes, in order to fix fuel surcharge rates. BA has already been forced to agree to a massive payout, as compensation to passengers who had been disadvantaged by the alleged price fixing scheme. According to the charges, British Airways engaged in price fixing on some of its transatlantic routes between 2004 and 2006.

Price fixing is a serious white collar crime in the UK and if found guilty, the BA executives may each face up to five years imprisonment, as well as hefty fines. The price fixing scheme involved 11 million passengers, who ended up paying collectively GBP 100 million more than what they should have for the fuel surcharge, due to the coordination between BA and Virgin Atlantic.

There is a realistic chance that the four implicated BA executives will, in fact, face some jail time, as the OFT recently went after several oil execs on cartel charges, and had one of the accused sentenced for 36 months.

www.ba.com