BA fuel surcharge fine halved to £58 million: watchdog

A fine imposed on British Airways five years ago for fixing fuel surcharges on tickets has been cut by around half to £58.5 million (71.5 million euros, $94 million) by a British watchdog, it said on Thursday.

The Office of Fair Trading said the reduction took into account BA’s co-operation in an investigation into pricing on long-haul flights between August 2004 and January 2006.

In August 2007, the regulator fined BA £121.5 million after British rival Virgin Atlantic disclosed details of the pair’s price-fixing. Under the OFT’s leniency policy, Virgin was not fined.

“The OFT has today announced its decision that British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways (VAA) engaged in anti-competitive practices in relation to the pricing of passenger fuel surcharges, and has imposed a fine of £58.5 million on BA,” a statement said.

“VAA brought the matter to the OFT’s attention and, under the OFT’s leniency policy, has not been fined.”

The OFT and BA had originally struck a deal in 2007 for the airline to pay a fine totalling £121.5 million.

“The fine was reassessed following the issue of a statement of objections in November 2011 in light of a number of factors,” the OFT said on Thursday.

“These included legal developments regarding penalty setting for competition law infringements and the fact that the overall value added to the OFT’s investigation by BA’s co-operation was greater than had been anticipated at the time of the original agreement.”

BA said in a separate statement: “We are pleased that this matter, which concerned events between 2004 and 2006, has been settled.”