US firms sue Teo Siong Seng, shipping container makers over alleged price-fixing scheme

In its suit, the company said that it is seeking “multiple or treble damages” in monetary relief.

The US Justice Department ​indictment accused the defendant companies, which together manufacture about ‌95 per cent ⁠of the world’s standard dry shipping containers, of orchestrating a price-fixing conspiracy.

In the US, it is common for civil lawsuits to follow criminal antitrust prosecutions.

Federal prosecutors said the container manufacturers’ ​customers included “major ​US-based container lessors, ⁠shipping lines, and logistics companies” and that the defendants’ price-fixing caused delays and ​higher prices for American consumers.

Standard dry shipping containers, ​which ⁠are unrefrigerated, annually carry billions of dollars of products across the oceans to households in the United States.

The federal indictment said that the accused companies raised the price of dry shipping containers by restricting their output by various means, including by limiting the hours each production line for the containers could run per day, installing video surveillance cameras and agreeing not to build any new container manufacturing factories.

As a result, the price of standard shipping containers roughly doubled between 2019 and 2021, increasing the container manufacturers’ profits by approximately one hundredfold, the Justice Department said.

The alleged conspiracy went on for over four years, from November 2019 to at least January 2024.