SINGAPORE: Shipping executive Teo Siong Seng is among seven executives of shipping container manufacturing companies that have been accused by the United States of conspiring to restrict the output and fix the prices of dry containers.The price-fixing of nearly all the world's standard dry - or unrefrigerated - containers went on for over four years, spanning as early as November 2019 to at least January 2024, the US Justice Department said in a press release on Tuesday (May 19)."The multi-year conspiracy roughly doubled the prices of standard shipping containers between 2019 and 2021, increasing the container manufacturers’ profits approximately one hundredfold during the COVID-19 pandemic and global supply chain crisis," it said.Mr Teo is employed by Singamas Container Holdings as its CEO and chairman, a publicly traded company in Hong Kong. Singamas is a listed subsidiary of Pacific International Lines, of which Mr Teo is executive chairman.Mr Teo is also the chairman of the Singapore Business Federation (SBF). As SBF chairman, he is part of the Singapore Economic Resilience Taskforce.He is one of six executive co-defendants linked to Singamas' marketing director Vick Nam Hing Ma, who was arrested in France on Apr 14. His extradition to the US is pending.Following Ma's arrest, the executives and the companies they worked at were charged for conspiring to restrict the output of - and fix the price of - nearly all the world’s dry containers."The intermodal containers ... carry billions of dollars of goods across the oceans to American households each year," said the Justice Department.Mr Teo, along with five other co-defendants, is currently at large, according to the Justice Department.SINGAMAS ENGAGES LEGAL ADVISERSIn a filing on the Hong Kong exchange on Wednesday, Singamas said neither the company nor Mr Teo had been served with "any legal process or other legal documentation" by the US Justice Department.It added that it has engaged external legal advisers. In the meantime, all business operations and day-to-day activities will remain normal.Singamas also requested a one-day trading halt from Wednesday afternoon to 9am on Thursday.CIMC said on Wednesday that it "attaches great importance to the matter and will closely monitor and respond proactively".The company said that it had not yet been served any legal documentation by the US Justice Department.According to the Justice Department, several of the conspirators had been discussing a scheme to fix the prices of dry containers as early as March 2019.On or about Nov 14, 2019, several shipping executives from China International Marine Containers (CIMC), Shanghai Universal Logistics Equipment, CXIC Group Containers and an unnamed company met at CIMC's headquarters in Shenzhen.They agreed to raise the price of dry shipping containers by restricting the four companies' output by various means, including by limiting how long productions lines for the containers could run per day, installing video surveillance cameras to ensure that the companies did not breach the agreed-upon limitations, not building any new container manufacturing factories and establishing a fund that included a mechanism to financially penalise any reneging on the agreement.Singamas and another unnamed company later joined the output-restriction agreement.The conspirators refined their output-restriction scheme over time, agreeing by September 2020 to limit the number of standard dry shipping containers produced for major global customers, including container lessors, shipping lines, and logistics companies based globally, including in the US, Europe and China, said the Justice Department. Sometime between 2022 and 2023, they also agreed to cap total dry container production volume, with Mr Ma allegedly presenting Mr Teo with each company's production quotas in November 2023.The profits of CIMC's manufacturing business segment increased nearly one hundredfold - from about US$19.8 million in 2019 to about US$288 million in 2020 and US$1.75 billion in 2021. Singamas' net income increased from a loss of about US$110 million in 2019, to profits of about US$4.6 million in 2020 and about US$186.8 million in 2021."The defendants held hostage the world’s supply of ocean shipping containers during the COVID-19 pandemic when our supply chains needed it the most. They stole from everyday Americans who paid more and waited longer for vital goods as a result,” said acting assistant attorney general Omeed A Assefi of the Justice Department’s antitrust division.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. The fines may be raised to twice the gains from the crime or losses suffered by victims if those amounts exceed the statutory maximum.