Objector: Flight Fare Conspiracy Settlement Unfair

Bloomberg BNA reports on CEI’s Center for Class Action Fairness’ objection to the settlement in  Transpacific Passenger Air Trans. Antitrust Litig.  

This is the second time in recent months that the Competitive Enterprise Institute Center for Class Action Fairness, which represented the objector, has challenged a settlement based on the class representative’s inadequacy to represent all class members.

CCAF convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in February that the $17 million Target data breach settlement needed another look because not all class members had documented losses from the breach.

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Passengers sued 26 airlines, alleging a widespread conspiracy to fix the price of flights between the United States and Asia/Oceania. The appeal pertains to a $39.5 million settlement with five defendants: Societe Air France, Malaysian Airline System Berhad, Singapore Airlines Ltd., Vietnam Airlines Co. and Japan Airlines Co.

More than a third of the settlement, $14.8 million, would go to class counsel, leaving $22.1 million to be distributed to class members on a pro rata basis.

Counsel for the objector, Anna W. St. John of CCAF in Washington, argued that indirect purchasers “siphoned millions of dollars” from direct purchasers like objector Amy Yang.

Read the full article at Bloomberg BNA.