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Labaton Sucharow LLP Announces New Settlement In In re Air Cargo Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation

Dépèche transmise le 9 décembre 2011 par Business Wire

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Labaton Sucharow LLP announced today that Plaintiffs have reached partial settlements in In re Air Cargo Shipping Services Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1775, that now total over $462 million. Plaintiffs’ most recent settlement, the fifteenth in the litigation, is with Emirates who has agreed to pay $7.8 million to resolve the claims against it. The case continues against the remaining Defendants. The action is pending before the Honorable John Gleeson in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Hollis Salzman, Managing Partner of Labaton Sucharow LLP’s Antitrust Practice Group stated, “We believe this cartel has affected an enormous number of businesses around the globe who were deceived into paying unlawfully inflated air cargo rates. We are very pleased to have reached this settlement, which brings us one step closer to resolving the entire case on behalf of those who have been victimized by this far-reaching price fixing conspiracy.”

To date, Plaintiffs obtained the following partial settlements totaling more than $462 million with over a dozen international airlines located in five continents:

• Air France/KLM/Martinair - $87,000,000
• All Nippon Airways - $10,400,000
• American Airlines - $5,000,000
• British Airways - $89,512,000
• Cargolux - $35,100,000
• Emirates - $7,833,000
• Japan Airlines - $12,000,000
• Lan/ABSA - $66,000,000
• Lufthansa - $85,000,000
• Malaysia - $3,200,000
• Qantas - $26,500,000
• SAS - $13,930,000
• Saudi - $14,000,000
• South African - $3,290,000
• Thai Airways - $3,500,000

The case is being prosecuted on behalf of a proposed class of direct purchasers of airfreight shipping services. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants engaged in a global conspiracy to unlawfully inflate the prices charged to ship goods by air transportation between January 1, 2000 and September 11, 2006 by, among other practices, colluding on various surcharges and agreeing to eliminate or prevent shipping discounts and commissions in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1.

Almost half of all Defendants named in the lawsuit have pleaded guilty in the Department of Justice’s parallel criminal investigation into price fixing in the air transportation industry. These airlines have paid or agreed to pay criminal fines exceeding $1.8 billion.

Labaton Sucharow LLP, with offices in New York, New York and Wilmington, Delaware, is one of the country’s premier law firms representing institutional investors in class action and complex securities litigation, as well as consumers and businesses in class actions seeking to recover damages for anticompetitive practices. The Firm has been a champion of investor and consumer rights for close to 50 years, seeking recovery of current losses and necessary governance reforms to protect investors and consumers. Labaton Sucharow has been recognized for its excellence by the courts and peers. More information about Labaton Sucharow is available at www.labaton.com