Foreign Airlines Move To Dismiss Rate-Fixing Litigation

Last Friday, foreign cargo carriers filed motions to dismiss an air freight price-fixing suit brought by Schenker AG, the logistics division of Germany's national railway company, Deutsche Bahn, in the Eastern District of New York. Schenker AG v. Societe Air France, et al., case number 1:14-cv-04711. In its complaint filed last August, Schenker alleged that seven foreign airlines conspired to fix surcharge rates for various air cargo routes to, from and within the United States. This suit is just the latest in a series of investigations and claims concerning anticompetitive behavior in the air cargo industry, which began in 2006 when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), in conjunction with the European Commission and South Korea's Fair Trade Commission, organized raids of the offices of numerous air carriers around the world. Airlines have paid billions of dollars in fines to competition agencies throughout the world and nearly a billion more dollars in settlements to direct purchaser plaintiffs in a multi-district litigation in U.S. federal court.

Defendants All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd. and Cargolux Airlines International S.A. moved the district court to dismiss the action on the grounds of forum non conveniens under the Second Circuit's precedent in Capital Currency Exch., N.V. v. Nat'l Westminster Bank PLC, 155 F.3d 603, 609 (2d Cir. 1998). According to these defendants, Schenker's choice of forum should be...