Southwest Airlines 2015 Annual Report Download - page 42

and to Delta, the Consolidated Amended Complaint seeks injunctive relief against a broad range of
alleged anticompetitive activities, as well as attorneys’ fees. On August 2, 2010, the Court dismissed
plaintiffs’ claims that AirTran and Delta had violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act; the Court let stand
the claims of a conspiracy with respect to the imposition of a first bag fee and the airlines’ capacity and
pricing decisions. On June 30, 2010, the plaintiffs filed a motion to certify a class, which AirTran and
Delta have opposed. The parties have submitted briefs on class certification, and the parties have filed
motions to exclude the class certification opinions of each other’s expert. The parties engaged in
extensive discovery, and discovery has now closed. On June 18, 2012, the parties filed a Stipulation
and Order that plaintiffs have abandoned their claim that AirTran and Delta conspired to reduce
capacity. On August 31, 2012, AirTran and Delta moved for summary judgment on all of plaintiffs’
remaining claims, but discovery disputes between plaintiffs and Delta delayed further briefing on
summary judgment. On August 5, 2015, the Court entered an order granting class certification, which
was vacated on August 17, 2015, to permit further briefing on class certification and AirTran’s motion
to exclude plaintiffs’ expert. Thereafter, the parties filed motions to exclude the opinions of the other
parties’ experts. On January 8, 2016, the parties completed briefing on defendants’ motions for
summary judgment, plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, and the motions to exclude the opinions
of experts, and those motions have been submitted to the Court for decision. AirTran denies all
allegations of wrongdoing, including those in the Consolidated Amended Complaint, and intends to
defend vigorously any and all such allegations.
Also, on June 30, 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) issued a Civil Investigative Demand
(“CID”) to the Company. The CID seeks information and documents about the Company’s capacity
from January 2010 to the present including public statements and communications with third parties
about capacity. In June 2015, the Company also received a letter from the Connecticut Attorney
General requesting information about capacity; and on August 21, 2015, the Attorney General of the
State of Ohio issued an investigative demand seeking information and documents about the Company’s
capacity from December 2013 to the present. The Company is cooperating fully with the DOJ CID and
these two state inquiries.
Further, on July 1, 2015, a complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York on behalf of putative classes of consumers alleging collusion among the
Company, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines to limit capacity and maintain
higher fares in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Since then, a number of similar class action
complaints have been filed in the United States District Courts for the Central District of California,
the Northern District of California, the District of Columbia, the Middle District of Florida, the
Southern District of Florida, the Northern District of Georgia, the Northern District of Illinois, the
Southern District of Indiana, the Eastern District of Louisiana, the District of Minnesota, the District of
New Jersey, the Eastern District of New York, the Southern District of New York, the Middle District
of North Carolina, the District of Oklahoma, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the Northern District
of Texas, the District of Vermont, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin. The complaints seek treble
damages for periods that vary among the complaints, costs, attorneys’ fees, and injunctive relief. On
October 13, 2015, the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation centralized the cases to the
United States District Court in the District of Columbia. The Court has not yet entered a scheduling
order establishing a date for defendants to respond to the complaints. The Company intends to
vigorously defend these civil cases.
In addition, on July 8, 2015, the Company was named as a defendant in putative class action filed in
British Columbia, Canada alleging that the Company, Air Canada, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines
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