Cathay Pacific September 1946 as "Cathay Pacific Airways Limited", while another sister company The Roy Farrell Export Import Company (Hong Kong) Limited was incorporated on 28 August 1946 and chartered some flights of Cathay. According to "International Directory of Company Histories", forming two companies are for tax purposes. They named the airline "Cathay", the ancient name given to China, and "Pacific" because Farrell speculated that they would one day fly across the Pacific (which happened in the 1970s). Moreover, to avoid the name "Air Cathay" as it was already occurred in a comic. The Chinese name for the company ("") was not
Cathay Pacific agreements. It was fined US$60 million. The airline has subsequently set up an internal Competition Compliance Office, reporting to chief operating officer John Slosar, to ensure that the Group complies with all relevant competition and antitrust laws in the jurisdiction in which it operates. The breaches for which Cathay Pacific Cargo were being investigated in the US were not illegal under Hong Kong competition law. In September 2008, three of Cathay Pacific's top ten global accounts, Lehmann Brothers, AIG and Merrill Lynch, hit financial trouble. In March 2009, the airline reported a record full-year loss of HK$8.56 billion for 2008,