SAS Will Appeal Ruling In 2005 Case

The European Commission reached a decision Wednesday in an air-cargo investigation that began in December 2005. According to a press release from the Commission, a significant number of airlines have been fined for breaching the EU’s competition rules. The fines will be charged to SAS’ earnings for the third quarter of 2010, that will be presented Thursday.

“We are highly disappointed and strongly contest the considerable level of the fines, which we believe to be disproportionate to SAS Cargo’s actions,” says Mats Lönnkvist, Chief Legal Officer at SAS. “We have cooperated fully with the European Commission during the entire investigation and, for slightly more than four years, we have disputed the European Commission’s view that SAS Cargo has been involved in a global cartel.”

SAS says it will appeal the decision to the EU’s Court of First Instance, which may take several years.

“SAS takes competition rules with utmost seriousness and we do not accept any transgressions. We have a clear regulatory framework in place concerning compliance with competition legislation, which encompasses information, guidelines, training programs and control procedures,” Lönnkvist said. “In conjunction with SAS’ independent internal investigations, it was unfortunately confirmed that SAS Cargo, in the period 1999-2006, had been involved in a few isolated cases that constituted violations of the company’s internal regulatory framework. This is unacceptable and the few SAS Cargo employees who were involved are no longer employed by SAS. However, we adamantly maintain that these isolated incidents do not mean that SAS Cargo has been involved in a global cartel.”

FMI: http://ec.europa.eu