BRITISH Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has imposed a fine of 58.5 million pounds on British Airways (BA) for colluding with its rival Virgin Atlantic Airways (VAA) to engage in anti-competitive practice in relation to the pricing of passenger fuel surcharges, OFT said on Thursday.This is half of the penalty to BA instead of original fine of 121.5 million pounds agreed between the OFT and BA in August 2007 because of BA’s cooperation into its investigation. But it is still a record finefor BA. BA and VAA were engaged in anti-competitive practices in relation to the pricing of passenger fuel surcharges between August 2004 and January 2006. The two coordinated their surcharge pricing onlong-haul flights to and from Britain through the exchange of pricing and other commercially sensitive information. VAA brought the matter to the OFT’s attention and has not been fined under the OFT’s leniency policy."This decision brings an end to this investigation and sends out a strong message that coordinating pricing through the exchange of confidential information between competitors is unlawful,” Ali Nikpay,OFT Senior Director of Cartels and Criminal Enforcement, said."The size of the fine underlines that it is important for companies to take steps to ensure that they have an effective compliance culture. The fine would have been higher still but for the cooperation provided byBA throughout the OFT’s investigation. Without this, together with BA’s admission of the infringement, the case would have taken considerably longer to resolve,” Nikkpay said.