Flight Centre fined for price fixing
Flight Centre has been fined $12.5m (£6.8m) over price fixing following a long-running legal fight with Australia’s consumer watchdog.
It relates to five violations of the Trade Practices Act between 2005 and 2009 over ticket sales on Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Emirates.
Flight Centre tried to force the three airlines to enter into price fixing arrangements as they were selling tickets direct on their own websites for less.
The original fine was $11 million back in 2014 but has now been increased by the Full Federal Court.
Flight Centre appealed the penalty but so did consumer watchdog ACCC, which deemed the original fine too lenient.
"The ACCC appealed from the initial $11 million penalty orders because it considered that this level of penalty was inadequate to achieve a strong deterrence message.
"The ACCC wants to ensure that penalties for breaches of competition laws are not seen as an acceptable cost of doing business," said ACCC chairman Rod Sims.
"To achieve deterrence, we need penalties that are large enough to be noticed by senior management, company boards, and also shareholders."
Graham Turner, Flight Centre co-founder and managing director, said the company may yet appeal again.
"Flight Centre at all relevant times believed that it was acting lawfully and that its conduct did not contravene the Trade Practices Act," Turner said.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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