For their investigation, the FT spent days asking shipping companies to provide information on their shipping records and their handling of cargo. Each company they interviewed would only provide broad and general statistics about how much it would cost to ship a container. They were also provided detailed data about shipping costs in general but these did not include costs specific to specific areas or commodities. The FT also conducted telephone interviews with numerous freight forwarders and transport companies. Each company that supplied the FT with shipping costs had a few things in common. They all seemed to have international shipping services linked to their global headquarters in different countries.