Two Maersk Units Hit with USD 3.6 Mln Fine

Farrell Lines The US Justice Department has fined two Maersk Group units with USD 3.6 million in civil charges for filing recreated weight tickets to support invoices. One of the companies, the US-based roll-on roll-off carrier Farrell Lines, had an agreement with the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) under which it was required to undertake international door-to-door and/or port-to-port transportation services to move Department of Defense (DoD) and other government approved cargo into and out of Afghanistan via air, sea, and land. Farrell subcontracted its work on the contract to its affiliate, the freight forwarding and supply chain management firm DAMCO USA, which is the second company being fined. The price of the contract was based almost exclusively on the weight of the shipments, and documented cargo weights, consisting of weight tickets issued by a certified commercial scale for each cargo container, needed to be included with billing invoices to the government. According to the US Justice Department, USTRANSCOM discovered that 563 weight tickets submitted by Farrell to support their billing invoices were recreated by Damco employees and not authentic weight tickets. The department said that Farrell and Damco were cooperative in the investigation.