SINGAPORE: Shipping magnate Teo Siong Seng (pic) and other container industry executives implicated in an alleged global price-fixing scheme have been named in two civil lawsuits filed in the United States.
The class-action lawsuits, filed in the District Court for the Northern District of California, are separate from the criminal indictment brought by the US Department of Justice, and instead open up a new front of legal challenges driven by private US businesses.
Filed on June 2 and 9, manufacturing firm C.A. Spalding Company and transportation firm Daybreak Express are separately seeking to recoup millions of dollars the American companies allegedly lost to the container cartel over a number of years.
The criminal indictment named China International Marine Containers (CIMC), Shanghai Universal Logistics Equipment, CXIC Group Containers, Singamas Container Holdings – where Teo, a Singaporean, is chief executive – and two unnamed manufacturers as being in a cartel which produced about 95 per cent of the world’s standard dry containers.
Citing the indictment that was filed on Jan 22 and unsealed on May 19, the civil lawsuits allege that executives of firms in the cartel had orchestrated a scheme to artificially inflate the prices of shipping containers by restricting production.
They had done so through several means, including limiting the number of shifts and hours that each production line for containers could run daily, as well as installing 87 video surveillance cameras across 49 container production lines situated at the firms’ factories to ensure “no company violated the agreed-upon output restrictions”.
Investigators said that as a result, the price of a standard 20-foot shipping container more than doubled between 2019 and 2021, increasing from about US$1,600 (S$2,050) to US$3,500.
The alleged conspirators profited from the higher prices, with court documents stating that the profits of CIMC’s container manufacturing business increased from about 137 million yuan (S$26 million) in 2019 to 1.99 billion yuan the following year, and then 11.3 billion yuan in 2021.
Singamas, meanwhile, saw its net income go from a loss of about US$110 million in 2019, to a profit of about US$186.8 million in 2021.
Both civil lawsuits are petitioning the court for “treble damages”, which means the firms and executives involved could be forced to pay three times the amount of actual financial losses suffered by US businesses if found liable.
Checks on PACER, the US electronic court records system, indicate that summonses were issued by the American court on June 8 and 11 - requiring the named executives and firms to formally respond to the lawsuit within 21 days, failing which a default judgment may be entered against them.
The individuals named are Mai Boliang, who was president and chief executive of CIMC before becoming the firm’s chairman in August 2020; Huang Tianhua, vice-president of CIMC; Wan Yongbo, general manager of CIMC’s Operation Management Centre; Li Qianmin, general manager of Shanghai Universal Logistics Equipment; and CXIC Group Containers’ chief executive Zhang Yuqiang. All are Chinese nationals.
Teo is included in the list of individuals, along with Singamas marketing director Vick Ma – a Chinese national, who is currently awaiting extradition to the US after being arrested in France in April.
Teo declined to comment when asked about the civil lawsuits.
Since being named in the US indictment, the 71-year-old has taken a leave of absence from several of his roles, including Pacific International Lines, the shipping company where he serves as executive chairman.
Other organisations include the Singapore Business Federation (SBF), where he is chairman; the Singapore Economic Resilience Taskforce; trade agency Enterprise Singapore, where he is a board member; and the National University of Singapore, where he is a pro-chancellor.
He said on May 28 that he does not plan to seek re-election once his term as SBF chairman ends on June 24.
He was elected to the role on May 20, 2025, after then chairman Lim Ming Yan ended his term early and stepped down to focus on his appointment as chairman of Changi Airport Group.
Teo was previously chairman of the apex business chamber from 2014 to 2020, serving three consecutive two-year terms.
In his first and only public statement since the accusations, he said on May 28: “I have proactively decided to take these leaves of absence to afford myself sufficient time to attend to this matter, and for the best interests of the aforementioned organisations.” - The Straits Times/ANN
