US Indicts 4 Major Chinese Container Manufacturers for Alleged Price Fixing During Pandemic

(Washington, 19th, Agence France-Presse) The U.S. Department of Justice today announced the indictment of seven senior Chinese executives and four major container manufacturers on charges of allegedly colluding to control production and inflate prices. According to AFP, DOJ officials indicated that the indicted companies control approximately 95% of the global production capacity for standard dry cargo containers. They are suspected of jointly controlling production during the COVID-19 pandemic and the global supply chain crisis, impacting international trade by $35 billion (approximately NT$1.1077 trillion). Among the indicted executives, Ma Nanqing, a Chinese marketing director for Singamas Container Holdings Ltd, has been arrested in France and is undergoing extradition proceedings. The other six are fugitives. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. stated that these Chinese monopolies conspired to manipulate prices between November 2019 and January 2024, and their actions violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. Woodward said, "At the onset of the global pandemic, these manufacturers exploited their market dominance to profit from the crisis." Corporate profits surged, with one company's earnings increasing nearly a hundredfold in just two years. Acting Assistant Attorney General Omees Assefi said, "This case affects the shelves of every American store, every American family." "During the peak of the pandemic, the defendants lined their pockets by choking off supply, while the American people, suffering from shortages and soaring prices, paid the price." Assefi recalled how in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, store shelves were emptied, backorders multiplied, and the collapse of the supply chain triggered widespread price hikes for all kinds of goods, with the cost of shipping containers doubling. "As a nation, we went through that difficult time together. Meanwhile, the defendants and their co-conspirators were profiting from our suffering." U.S. President Trump recently visited China and held a summit with Chinese President Xi, striving to bring U.S.-China relations, especially in trade, back to a more stable track. The four companies indicted by the Department of Justice are: Singamas Container Holdings Ltd, China International Marine Containers (Group), Shanghai Universal Logistics Equipment Co., Ltd., and Xinhua Chang Group. DOJ officials view this indictment as an action to combat a "conspiracy to empty the pockets of Americans." Prosecutors allege that the Chinese companies were involved in collusion, price manipulation, and market supply manipulation, at the very...