4 Airlines Reach $360M Air Cargo Price-Fixing Settlement

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Four major domestic and foreign airlines received final approval for a class action lawsuit settlement worth $360 million after a government investigation accused the companies of worldwide price-fixing within the air cargo industry.

U.S. District Judge John Gleeson found the terms of the airline settlement to be fair and reasonable for thousands of Class Members who paid for air cargo services that allegedly cost more due to a price-fixing scheme.

This is the fourth airline settlement reached which includes a $115 million pay-out from Korean Air Lines; more than $90 million from both Singapore Airlines and China Airlines; and a $60 million settlement from Cathay Pacific Airways.

According to Judge Gleeson, the discovery process in the airline class action lawsuit included more than 18 million pages of documents and 83 depositions. The judge states: “Bringing the claims against the settling defendants to fruition would have required significant additional time and expense. Furthermore, based on the expertise of class counsel and the advanced stage of discovery, I find that counsel were well-informed of the facts and the strength of their claims against each of the settling defendants by the time the agreements were executed.”

The air cargo shipping price-fixing class action lawsuits started being filed after an investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission found that the defendants communicated with each other during meetings in order to fix the airline rates for various routes. The governments further alleged that airline executives then enforced the rates they agreed upon in following meetings within the U.S. and other countries. 

Airline price-fixing class action settlements continue to be reached as Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Lufthansa Cargo AG and Swiss International Air Lines Ltd. have also agreed to pay a total of $85 million.

Four other airlines remain in the price-fixing class action lawsuit and are scheduled to go to trial next March. They include: Air China Ltd., Air India Ltd., Air New Zealand Ltd. and Polar Air Cargo Inc.

The airline price-fixing class action lawsuit claims that the terms of the settlement was mailed to more than 160,000 Class Members and there wasn’t a single objection.

More information about the airline price-fixing class action settlement was not immediately available. Keep checking TopClassActions.com or sign up for our free newsletter for the latest updates. You can also mark this article as a “Favorite” using your free Top Class Actions account to receive notifications when this article is updated.

Class Members are represented by Robert N. Kaplan, Gregory K. Arenson and Gary L. Specks of Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP, Hollis L. Salzman and Meegan Hollywood of  Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP, Howard J. Sedran and Austin B. Cohen of of Levin Fishbein Sedran & Berman and Michael D. Hausfeld, Brent W. Landau, Hilary K. Scherrer and Melinda R. Coolidge of Hausfeld LLP.

The Airline Price-Fixing Class Action Lawsuit Settlement is In re: Air Cargo Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 1:06-md-01775, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

UPDATE: On Feb. 4, 2016, Polar Air agreed to pay $100 million and the Air China agreed to pay $50 million to settle the litigation. If approved, these class action settlements will resolve the claims against all but two defendants in the litigation.

UPDATE 2: On Oct. 6, 2016, a federal judge signed off on thelast few settlements ending a decade-long air cargo antitrust litigation.