Japan Airlines International (JAL) has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $110 million criminal fine for its participation in a price-fixing scandal tied to air-cargo shipments, the U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday. JAL's admission of criminal wrongdoing comes after the Justice Department reached similar plea agreements with other carriers last year, including British Airways and Korean Air Lines. “This price-fixing conspiracy inflicted a heavy toll on American businesses and consumers,” senior department antitrust official Thomas Barnett said of the JAL settlement. According to the department, Asia's largest air carrier “engaged in a conspiracy” in the United States and other countries to eliminate competition by fixing the rates on international shipments of air cargo to and from the United States and elsewhere. JAL participated in the scheme for about six years between 2000 and 2006, the department said. Investigators said that during that time, JAL was the largest cargo carrier between the United States and Japan and that it earned nearly $2 billion from its cargo flights between the two countries.
