Judge Gives Final OK to Air Cargo Price-Fixing Settlement

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Final judgment has been issued by a New York federal judge for an air cargo class action lawsuit settlement against four domestic and international airline companies over an alleged price-fixing conspiracy.

U.S. District Judge John Gleeson agreed to the $360 million airline class action settlement involving Korean Air Lines, Singapore Airlines, China Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways who were accused of working together in order to raise, fix and maintain airline shipping prices.

Judge Gleeson gave his approval for the airline price-fixing class action settlement last month stating that “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.”

However, issuing final judgment makes the $360 million air cargo antitrust class action lawsuit settlement official.

As part of the airline price-fixing class action lawsuit settlement, Korean Air Lines will pay $115 million, China Airlines will pay $90 million, Singapore Airlines will pay $90 million and Cathay Pacific Airways will pay $65 million.

According to Judge Gleeson, the terms of the air cargo class action lawsuit settlement are fair and reasonable to the thousands of companies that purchased shipping services directly from the airlines who allegedly engaged in antitrust behaviors.

The airline antitrust class action lawsuit claimed that the companies used meetings, emails and other forms of communication to participate in price-fixing. Several other airline companies have agreed to settle the air cargo class action lawsuits including Swiss International Air Lines, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, and Lufthansa Cargo AG.

This is the fourth airline settlement reached. Airline price-fixing class action lawsuit settlements have generated more than $1 billion for potential Class Members.

The air cargo shipping class action lawsuit settlement is open to all Class Members who purchased airfreight shipping services for shipments to, from or within the United States directly from a settling airline or from any of their parents, predecessors, successors, subsidiaries, or affiliates, between Jan. 1, 2000 and Sept. 11, 2006.

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 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 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.