03:24 PM EDT, 03/11/2024 (MT Newswires) -- (Updates with Ford's statement in the last paragraph)

Ford Motor Company ( F ) agreed to pay $365 million to resolve allegations it misclassified one of its vehicle types to avoid paying duties when importing the car from abroad, the US Department of Justice said Monday.

The company allegedly misclassified its Transit Connect cargo vans as passenger vehicles while importing them from Turkey from April 2009 to March 2013, the agency said. As a result, Ford ended up paying a 2.5% duty rate instead of the 25% applicable to cargo vehicles, the department said.

The settlement also resolves allegations the company avoided paying import duties by under declaring the value of certain Transit Connect vehicles from April 2009 through August 2013 period, the agency said.

"Ford strongly disagrees with many of the characterizations in the DOJ's statement and admits no liability in this matter," a Ford spokesperson told MT Newswires. "But in the interest of moving on from this complex, decade-old dispute, we have agreed to settle the matter once and for all."

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