10.12.2020 - 07:39 UTC
British Airways, Air Canada, and Deutsche Bahn (DB), the German rail operator, have reached an out-of-court settlement in a longstanding air freight price-fixing cartel dispute before the Cologne Regional Court. The parties agreed to keep details of the settlement, including the amount, confidential, DB said in a statement.
The case relates to the decision by the European Commission in 2010 to impose fines of almost EUR800 million (USD970 million) on 11 air freight operators for illegal agreements on fuel and security surcharges. The carriers coordinated their actions on surcharges for fuel and security without discounts over a six-year period (from December 1999 to February 14, 2006). Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt Int'l) (and its subsidiary Swiss (LX, Zurich)) received full immunity from fines under the Commission's leniency programme, as it was the first to provide information about the cartel.
In 2013, DB subsidiary DB Barnsdale AG brought damages claims of EUR3 billion (USD3.6 billion) in the Cologne Regional Court against the companies involved, including Air Canada, Air France-KLM Royal Dutch Airlines...