Three oil executives will appear in court early in the new year and are expected to plead guilty in the first price-fixing case brought by the main competition watchdog.

The Office of Fair Trading said the men were charged at Heathrow on Tuesday on arrival from the US, where they pleaded guilty to cartel offences last week as part of a pioneering deal with prosecutors. As part of that deal the men made a commitment to the US authorities to plead guilty to the British cartel offence.