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ANTITRUST
In re Railroad Antitrust Litigation
Chimicles & Tikellis LLP, along with its co-counsel, filed a class action complaint in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against CSX Transportation, Inc., Norfolk Southern Railway Company, BNSF Railway Company, Union Pacific Railroad Company, Kansas City Southern Railway Company (collectively, the "Railroad Defendants"), and the Association of American Railroads (together with the Railroad Defendants, "Defendants"). The complaint was filed on behalf of the plaintiff and all others who, from July 2003 to the present (the "Class Period"), have purchased directly from the Railroad Defendants "unregulated" rail freight transportation services on which rail fuel surcharges were assessed. The term "unregulated" refers to rail freight transportation services where the rates are set by private contracts or through other means exempt from rate regulation under federal law. The domestic market for rail transportation services was estimated at more than $51 billion in 2006. According to the complaint, during the Class Period the Railroad Defendants accounted for over 90% of industry revenue within the United States.
The complaint alleges that the Defendants and their co-conspirators engaged in price fixing in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act by conspiring to fix, maintain, raise or stabilize prices of unregulated rail freight transportation services sold in the United States through the use of rail fuel surcharges added to customer's bills. According to the complaint, rail fuel surcharges are separately-identified fees that the Railroad Defendants charged for unregulated rail freight transportation services, purportedly to compensate for increases in the cost of fuel. The complaint alleges that the Railroad Defendants maintained uniformity of prices in rail fuel Surcharges by computing the surcharges as a percentage of the rail freight transport base rate, and by agreeing upon common indices and trigger points for adjusting the percentages monthly. The complaint also claims that defendants published their rail fuel surcharges on their websites to facilitate the coordination of the conspiracy, and to detect any deviation from the collusive pricing.
According to the complaint, this price fixing conspiracy restrained competition in the market for unregulated rail freight transportation services, and caused plaintiff and members of the class to pay higher prices for unregulated rail freight transportation than they would have paid absent the conspiracy. The antitrust class action filed by Chimicles & Tikellis seeks treble damages, injunctive relief, and attorney's fees and costs.
The class action complaint can be viewed by clicking here.
For further information, you may contact:
James R. Malone, Jr. (JamesMalone@chimicles.com)
Michael D. Gottsch (MichaelGottsch@chimicles.com),
Joseph G. Sauder (JosephSauder@chimicles.com), or
Benjamin F. Johns (BenJohns@chimicles.com)
Chimicles & Tikellis LLP
One Haverford Center
Haverford, PA 19041
1-866-399-2487
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