McLafferty v. Deutsche Lufthansa A.G. et al. (E.D. Pa. Oct. 16, 2009). In her class action complaint, the plaintiff alleged that Lufthansa, Air France, KLM and Alitalia had engaged in price fixing in violation of the Sherman Act. She alleged that, at a 2003 IATA meeting, the airlines agreed to impose surcharges on fares for passenger travel between Europe and Japan.
At the court’s direction, the parties briefed the issue of whether the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act of 1982, which amended the Sherman Act, excluded the case from the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal courts.
The FTAIA amended the Sherman Act by excluding certain conduct involving trade or commerce with foreign nations from federal courts’ subject matter jurisdiction. In cases involving alleged restraints on commerce with foreign nations, the court first determines if the defendants’ conduct involved “trade or commerce (other than import trade or import commerce) with foreign nations.” If so, the court does not have subject matter jurisdiction unless the defendants’ conduct involved a “direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable” anticompetitive effect on U.S. commerce that would result in a Sherman Act claim.
The court held that the defendants’ conduct involved “trade or commerce with foreign nations” because they had sold tickets to a U.S. purchaser for foreign travel, but that such purchases did not constitute “import trade or import commerce” because they did not “bring any goods or services to the United States.” The court ruled that an airline ticket, even if it is delivered in the U.S., is not a “good” because it has no value apart from the service to which its bearer is entitled.
Thus, the plaintiff’s last chance to escape the FTAIA’s jurisdictional bar was to show that she had made sufficient allegations that defendants’ conduct had a direct, substantial and reasonably foreseeable anticompetitive effect on U.S. commerce. The court held that the plaintiff’s pleadings did not even suggest that the defendants’ conduct had such an effect, that the plaintiff’s injury was in the Europe-Japan fare market and that such injury did not directly affect U.S. commerce. Accordingly, the court dismissed the case on the grounds that the FTAIA had removed it from the court’s subject matter jurisdiction.