In re Transpacific Passenger Air Transportation Antitrust Litigation

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

The five remaining Defendants in this antitrust suit — Air New Zealand, All *946 Nippon Airways (“ANA”), China Airlines, EVA Air, and Philippine Airlines — move for summary judgment on the basis of the filed rate doctrine, a defense to private antitrust suits, which provides that “to the extent Congress has given [an agency] authority to set rates ... and [the agency] has exercised that authority, such rates are just and reasonable as a matter of law and cannot be collaterally challenged under federal antitrust law....” See E. & J. Gallo Winery v. EnCana Corp., 503 F.3d 1027, 1035 (2007). As explained below, the Court finds that Congress gave the Department of Transportation (“DOT”) authority over all of the rates and charges at issue‘in this case, and that (1) the DOT exercised that authority over the rates that Defendants actually filed with the DOT (Class B and C air fares), but (2) the DOT did not exercise that authority over the rates that Defendants did not file with the DOT (Class A air fares, fuel surcharges, and ANA special discount rates). The filed rate doctrine therefore applies,…