the EU commission confirmation endorsements for 776,5 million euros to eleven airlines of the field cargo



To six years of distance from the decision of the EU commission to endorse eleven airlines that operate in the segment cargo imposing fines for a total of 799,4 million euros ( on 9 November 2010), decision that - as a result of the resources introduced from all the carriers airplane with the exception of Qantas - in December 2015 were cancelled by the Court of the European Union that had evidenced discrepancies between the application motivations of the sentence and its modalities, the Commission have now decided to restate own decision reaffirming that these airlines from December 1999 to February 2006 had constituted a trust for the control of the rates.

The companies fined in the 2010 were Air Canada, Air France-KLM, British Airways, Cargolux, Cathay Pacific Airways, Japan Airlines, Lan Chile, Martinair, Qantas, SAS and Singapore Airlines. Lufthansa, that it was the twelfth member of the trust, and its controlled Swiss International Air Lines, were exempted by the payment of fines as a result of the demand for immunity from the fines introduced from the German company to end 2005 and its cooperation in the investigations. All the companies had successively introduced resorted with the exception of the Qantas, for which the decision of 2010 therefore was passed in sentences.

Little more than a year from the cancellation of the decision by the Court of the EU, the EU commission has restated own conviction of the subsistence of the trust and has adopted an analogous decision to that of end 2010 having newly imposed the endorsements for a amount of 776,5 million euros, light inferior amount to that from six year ago as, if for all the other companies the figure to pay has remained the same one, for Martinair it turns out inferior as in the 2010 decision of the era inflicted a fine whose amount, as expected by the European norms, was limited to a maximum of 10% ofits turnover total in 2009. The Commission has specified that, since in the 2016 turnover of Martinair has turned out remarkablly inferior to that recorded in 2009, the amount of the fine is reduced so as to reflect this decrease.

The Commission has specified inotlre that the new decision places remedy to the characterized procedural errors from the Court of the EU, while turns out identical to the precedence regarding the evidenziazione of the anti-competitive conducts that six years ago they had induced to assume the decision to endorse the airlines.

"Million companies - it has emphasized Margrethe Vestager, commissioner to the competition - are entrusted to services of aerial transport of goods, services that transport beyond 20% of all the imports of the EU and almost 30% of its exports. To form a trust instead competing in order to offer better services to the customers turns out in contrast with the principles of the Commission".