The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has rejected appeals by several major airlines against antitrust fines totalling more than €770m.
Europe’s top court rejected 12 out 13 appeals related to a price fixing cargo cartel, with only SAS securing a reduction in its fine due to a miscalculation in the fine that was imposed on the carrier.
The airlines facing the highest fines are Air France with €182.9m, KLM at €127.1m and British Airways at €104m.
The SAS fine was reduced to €62.8m from €70m.
“The Court of Justice rejects the arguments of the airlines challenging the Commission’s jurisdiction to
penalise the cartel in respect of airfreight services from third countries to the European Union or the European Economic Area,” the Luxembourg-based court said in a statement.
The matter stretches back to 2010, when 11 airlines were fined €799m for operating a price-fixing cargo cartel that affected cargo services within the European Economic Area (EEA).
The cartel members coordinated various elements of price, in particular fuel and security surcharges, for a period of over six years, from December 1999 to February 2006, according to the European Commission.
The airlines originally named by the European Commission in 2010 included Air Canada, Air France-KLM, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Cargolux, Japan Airlines, LAN Chile, Martinair, SAS, Singapore Airlines and Qantas.
Lufthansa (and its subsidiary Swiss) received full immunity from fines under the Commission’s leniency programme, as it was the first to provide information about the cartel.
In 2015, the European Union (EU) General Court annulled the fines totalling nearly €800m imposed by the European Commission against 11 of the airlines for the alleged fixing of airfreight charges, concluding that there had been a procedural error.
However, in 2017 that annulment was overturned by the EC and the fines re-instated, which prompted several airlines to launch appeals.
In 2022, the General Court dismissed some of those appeals while reducing the fine on others.
However, the airlines appealed again, leading to this week’s decision by the European Court of Justice.
