Labaton Sucharow represents Plaintiffs who include businesses and consumers who allege that Defendant air cargo shipping providers participated in a global conspiracy to fix prices charged for these shipping services at supercompetitive levels, in violation of the federal antitrust laws. The action is pending before the Honorable Judge John Gleeson in the Eastern District of New York.

Plaintiffs allege that Defendants collusively imposed fraudulent surcharges on Plaintiffs’ bills for air cargo shipping, purportedly reflecting increased costs related to fuel, compliance with security measures, and war-risk insurance premiums. Defendants include almost all of the biggest players in the worldwide air cargo shipping market. In short, as alleged, all of these surcharges were not a reflection of increased costs, but of Defendants’ desire for anticipant profits.

Labaton Sucharow was successful in its briefing before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which transferred all related actions to the Eastern District of New York for coordinated and consolidated proceedings. On November 15, 2006 Labaton Sucharow was appointed Co-Lead Counsel. Lufthansa, a Defendant in the case and one of the largest airfreight services providers in the world, has agreed to settle the U.S. portion of the case against it for $85 million, as well as to cooperate with Plaintiffs by providing critical evidence of the conspiracy. The proposed settlement has been preliminarily approved by the Court.