U.S. charges Chinese container manufacturers, 7 execs for collusion and artificially restricting supply during COVID-19

OAN Staff Lillian Mann
5:00 PM – Tuesday, May 19, 2026

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they have charged seven Chinese executives and four of the world’s largest shipping container companies with conspiring to restrict the supply of shipping containers and raising their prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting billions of dollars of commerce.

On Tuesday, the DOJ released a statement detailing how the shipping container giants — together responsible for about 95% of the world’s standard dry shipping container production — allegedly colluded to restrict output and raise prices between November 2019 and January 2024.

The accused Chinese firms reportedly control the majority of unrefrigerated shipping container manufacturing around the globe, according to the statement.

“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,” the DOJ said.

 

Vick Ma, 54, the marketing director at Singamas Container Holdings Ltd, was arrested in France in April, the DOJ statement noted. Singamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations, according to Reuters.

Following Ma’s arrest, however, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California unsealed a superseding indictment charging Ma and 10 co-conspirators with plotting to restrict output and fix prices for nearly all of the world’s standard unrefrigerated shipping containers.

The intermodal units transport billions of dollars’ worth of goods across the oceans to American households each year. In total, the superseding indictment charges 11 defendants, including Ma and his alleged co-conspirators.

“Around the start of the global ‌pandemic, ⁠these manufacturers exploited the crisis and their market power to squeeze the supply chain for profit,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward ​said during an announcement of the case.

According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, in the second half of 2020, the number of shipping containers in circulation was “insufficient to meet customer storage demands and higher than anticipated consumer demand for imports.” With the commission saying that an “unexpected recovery in demand shocked the distribution system.” 

Stay informed! Receive breaking news alerts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts

Sponsored Content Below

Share this post!