British Airways executives charged over fuel price-fixing

Business News

Aug 7, 2008, 12:08 GMT

London - Britain's competition watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), Thursday brought charges against four past and present British Airways (BA) executives over price-fixing on fuel surcharges. The probe would be the first to threaten managers at a leading multinational company with jail, the Financial Times said Thursday. Conviction could lead to prison terms of up to five years. The watchdog decided to charge the four men over a 'conspiracy' between BA and rival Virgin Atlantic between 2004 and 2006 to fix the price of passenger fuel prices on transatlantic flights. The case concerns Andrew Crawley, BA's current head of sales, and three previous top executives Martin George, Iain Burns and Alan Burnett. BA, as a company, was fined a total of around 270 million pounds (540 million dollars) over the surcharge offences by the OFT and the US Department of Justice last year. Virgin was granted immunity after bringing the matter to the attention of the OFT. The OFT said the four men were charged with 'having dishonestly agreed with others to make or implement arrangements' which directly or indirectly fixed the price for the supply in Britain of passenger air transport services by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways. They will appear at the City of London Magistrates' Court on September 24.

View blog reactions

If you liked this story please support M&C and Buzz the site on Yahoo.

Latest Headlines in Business

Talkback

There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)

Latest from M&C Blogs

Obama: the gloves come off in Denver - Global Eye on August 29, 2008 6:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Biden: good choice or admission of Obama's weakness? - Global Eye on August 25, 2008 6:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Are political campaigns wasting their money on undecided voters? - Global Eye on August 22, 2008 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Upside-down House - The World in Pictures on August 4, 2008 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Church of our Lady in Dresden, Germany - The World in Pictures on August 4, 2008 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Giant Orange - The World in Pictures on July 15, 2008 5:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Business

British Airways executives charged over fuel price-fixing

Business News

Latest Headlines in Business

Talkback

Latest from M&C Blogs

Similar articles

In Monsters and Critics

Corporate

The Fine Print