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EU: $834M Air cargo cartel fines renewed

By  |  March 19, 2017

The European Union has re-imposed fines totalling 776 million euros, on 11 air cargo companies,  even though the EU’s high court threw out the original case in 2015 on a procedural issue.

In November 2010, the commission found 11 carriers guilty of fixing fuel and security surcharges at both a bi-lateral and multi-lateral level for seven years, between 1999 and 2006.

A twelfth carrier, Lufthansa, brought the cartel to the commission’s attention and, under the 2006 Leniency Notice, received full immunity – as did its subsidiary Swiss International Airlines.

Australian carrier Qantas accepted the verdict, but the other 10 challenged the decision, with the EU’s General Court annulling it on procedural grounds in December 2015.

The annulment followed a discrepancy between the reasoning and operative parts of the decision, with the reasoning describing a single and continuous infringement covering all addressees.

Full Content: New Europe

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