By Zoe Tillman, From The National Law Journal
Consumers filed cases in federal district courts in Washington, New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
As the U.S. Department of Justice investigates whether airlines conspired to keep ticket prices high, consumers are already going to court.
On Monday, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan filed an antitrust class action against American Airlines Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Southwest Airlines Co. and United Airlines Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Similar cases were filed over the past week in federal district courts in San Francisco, New York and Chicago.
The lawsuits accuse the four airlines of colluding to fix the price of domestic airline tickets by limiting the seating capacity on U.S. flights, curbing the number of U.S. flights offered to consumers and restricting access to price information.
Bernstein Liebhard and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll are working with Quinn Emanuel on the D.C. case. Law firms involved in the cases filed elsewhere include Hausfeld; Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd; Lowey Dannenberg Cohen & Hart in White Plains, New York; Segal, McCambridge, Singer & Mahoney of Chicago; and Nussbaum Law Group in New York.
The Justice Department last week confirmed to several news outlets that it was investigating “possible unlawful coordination” among airlines. A Justice Department spokeswoman was not immediately available to comment on Tuesday.
A United spokesman on Tuesday said the airline had received a letter from the Justice Department and was complying with the request. He declined to comment on the private class actions. A Southwest representative said via email that the airline was aware of the litigation but would not comment on the allegations.
A spokesman for Delta said that the airline received a civil investigative demand from DOJ and was “fully cooperating.” An American Airlines spokesman also confirmed that the airline received a demand for information and said that DOJ sought documents and information about “airline capacity.”
As for the private class actions, the American Airlines spokesman said in a statement that there was a “robust and competitive marketplace” that had benefitted consumers and that the company would “vigorously contest” the antitrust claims.
According to the lawsuit filed in D.C., lawyers expect the class to include hundreds of thousands of consumers nationwide who bought domestic airline tickets from one of the four airlines since at least 2011.
Quinn Emanuel partner Stephen Neuwirth, who chairs the firm’s antitrust practice, is lead counsel for the plaintiffs. He said it was a “virtual certainty” that the cases filed across the country would be consolidated. There were “several compelling reasons” why D.C. made sense as a venue for the class action claims, he said, including the fact that the government investigation was believed to be based out of Justice Department headquarters in Washington.
“This is an instance where, as is often the case, private enforcement actions are an important complement to a government investigation,” Neuwirth said.
As evidence of the alleged conspiracy, the plaintiffs cited a rise in prices for domestic flights even as fuel prices dropped; the consolidation of the airline industry, most recently with the merger of American and US Airways in 2013; the airlines’ embrace of “capacity discipline” to limit the number of flights and seats available; and alleged efforts to direct consumers away from websites that compare ticket prices.
The Justice Department originally challenged the $11 billion American-US Airways merger, warning that it could lead to higher prices and worse customer service. The government reached a settlement with the airlines in late 2013 that permitted the merger to go through. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly approved the deal in April 2014.
Photo: Alison Church/Daily Report
For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202731483754/Airlines-Face-Antitrust-Class-Actions-Over-PriceFixing-Claims#ixzz3fJNkwd9r