The General Court of the European Union (GCEU) has overturned a 2011 European Commission (EC) ruling which found several international carriers guilty of conspiring to inflate the price of shipping goods by air by manipulating their fuel and security surcharges between 2000 and 2006.

The airlines - Air Canada, Air France, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, British Airways, Cargolux, Cathay Pacific, JAL - Japan Airlines, LAN Airlines, Martinair (Netherlands), and Qantas - were ordered to pay a total of EUR790 million (USD864 million) in fines. Lufthansa and its subsidiaries Swiss and Lufthansa Cargo were granted immunity for being the first to cooperate with the EC investigation into the cartel's activities.

However, following an appeal, the GCEU said it found a "contradiction" and “inconsistencies” in the way the EC had pursued its case and ruling. The court said the EC had argued that the cartel was "one single and continuous worldwide infringement covering all the routes" but had only specified four infringements relating to different periods and routes and committed by different carriers in its ruling. As such, the EC's failure to specify particular instances of infringement had created ambiguity over how each party had been penalized and for what infringement.

"The General Court annuls the decision by which the Commission imposed fines amounting to approximately EUR790 million on several airlines for their participation in a cartel on the airfreight market," the Luxembourg-based court said in a statement.

The cartel has generated lawsuits across the world with plaintiffs claiming the conspiracy increased global shipping prices, costing businesses and individuals that ship goods by air billions of dollars in losses.

The US Department of Justice has already imposed criminal fines exceeding USD1.8 billion against twenty-two airlines and twenty-one executives with four executives now serving jail time. In Canada, eight carriers have thus far pled guilty with fines in the Canadian Competition Bureau's investigation totalling more than CAD25 million (USD18.1 million). The Korea Fair Trade Commission fined nineteen companies over KRW124 billion (USD105.27 million) while the New Zealand Competition Statute has issued fines for NZD42.5 million (USD28.8 million). In Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has secured court-ordered civil penalties totalling AUD98.5 million (USD71 million) while a class action lawsuit was settled in 2014 for AUD38 million (USD33 million).