Qantas Chief Executive Officer Geoff Dixon has announced that Qantas would make a provision of US$40 million (A$47 million) to cover a potential fine that may be imposed in the USA as a result of conduct undertaken by Qantas’ Freight Division.

Investigations have revealed that the practice adopted by Qantas Freight and the cargo industry generally to fix and impose fuel surcharges was likely to have breached relevant competition laws in the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other jurisdictions.

Mr Dixon said that “On 1 August 2007, the US Department of Justice announced that British Airways and Korean Air had agreed to plead guilty and pay separate US$300 million criminal fines for their roles in conspiracies to fix prices of passenger and cargo flights. British Airways subsequently announced that US$200 million of its fine related to cargo…

“At this stage, it is too early to make a reliable estimate of possible fines in other jurisdictions or of possible liability to third parties under class actions. We expect these amounts will be known over the next two years.”

An air cargo class action has already commenced against Qantas in Australia.

More (Fairfax Digital)