\n<\/p>\n
Mr Teo, who is the CEO and chairman of Hong Kong company Singamas Container Holdings, is one of seven executives from shipping container manufacturing companies that the US Department of Justice named in the price-fixing conspiracy.<\/p>\n
The alleged conspiracy went on for over four years, from November 2019 to at least January 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The US Justice Department said that as a result of the conspiracy, the prices of standard shipping containers doubled between 2019 and 2021, increasing container manufacturers\u2019 profits by about 100-fold during the COVID-19 pandemic and global supply chain crisis.<\/p>\n
Court documents showed that days after a December 2019 meeting between the alleged conspirators, a Singamas executive reported to Mr Teo that he had reminded the others \u201cnot to be high profile since it might violate the monopoly law or being accused of price manipulation by our customers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Teo had purportedly written in response to the executive\u2019s report on the meeting that \u201cwe also need to keep low key\u201d.<\/p>\n
When another Singamas board member said in an email that the discussions \u201cappeared to be anti-competition\u201d and suggested deleting the email string, Mr Teo allegedly wrote back saying: \u201cYes I feel the same.”<\/p>\n
Apart from Singamas, other companies allegedly involved in the conspiracy were China International Marine Containers (Group), Shanghai Universal Logistics Equipment Co, which owns Dong Fang International Containers, and CXIC Group Containers Co.<\/p>\n
The indictments come during a period of heightened trade and political tensions between Washington and Beijing, with logistical infrastructure increasingly scrutinised through the lens of economic security.<\/p>\n
If found guilty, the defendants face up to 10 years in prison and a US$1 million fine for individuals and a US$100 million fine for corporations.<\/p>\n
The fines may be raised to twice the gains from the crime or losses suffered by victims if those amounts exceed the statutory maximum.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Mr Teo, who is the CEO and chairman of Hong Kong company Singamas Container Holdings, is one of seven executives from shipping container manufacturing companies…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--InYOPFkN--\/c_crop,h_900,w_1600,x_0,y_125\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:cna,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/05\/21\/lzx_3409.jpg?itok=HnwaUeEi","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12807,2725,4390,2442,23607,727,6941,23606,10984,2750,7813,14411,14],"class_list":["post-55946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-absence","tag-company","tag-expands","tag-include","tag-indictment","tag-leave","tag-nus","tag-pil","tag-roles","tag-seng","tag-shipping","tag-siong","tag-teo","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}