Frank Peake, former president and chief operating officer of Sea Star Line, has lost his appeal of his conviction and five-year prison sentence for participating in a price-fixing conspiracy in the U.S. mainland-Puerto Rico market.

Efforts to repeal the Jones Act in the U.S. are part of a global campaign to weaken cabotage laws and undercut labor, said the president of a union representing U.S. seafarers.

A former employee of U.S. mainland-Puerto Rico carriers Sea Star Line and Trailer Bridge has been charged with defrauding the companies of $2.1 million by submitting phony invoices for container and equipment decals and inspection and transportation of containers and equipment.

Sea Star Line has added a third container-carrying barge to handle increased demand following the departure of Horizon Lines from the U.S. mainland-Puerto Rico trade.

A bipartisan group of 32 U.S. House members are pushing back against a recently filed amendment to repeal requirements that domestic waterborne cargo be shipped in U.S.-flag ships owned, built and operated by Americans.

Jones Act container line TOTE has contracted with two companies to supply liquefied natural gas for the two LNG-powered ships the company is building for the Puerto Rico trade.

Sea Star Line President Peter Keller will become executive vice president of the ocean carrier’s parent company, TOTE, Inc., effective Jan. 1, 2014.

Former Sea Star Line President Frank Peake, convicted of price-fixing in the Puerto Rico domestic trade, has challenged sentencing guidelines he said would give him the longest prison term of anyone ever convicted of an antitrust violation.

Sea Star Line has taken delivery of 150 new 40-foot refrigerated containers in the second year of a five-year equipment replacement plan.

John V. Keenan, former chief operating officer at Horizon Lines, has been advised by the Justice Department that he has been cleared of antitrust violations in the Jones Act domestic shipping market.

Frank Peake, former president of Sea Star Line, was convicted of antitrust conspiracy for his role in price-fixing by carriers in the U.S. mainland-Puerto Rico trade between late 2005 and early 2008.