Flight Centre, ACCC in High Court battle over price-fixing

Flight Centre has been drawn back into a stoush with the ACCC over price-fixing claims.

Flight Centre is heading to the High Court after the ACCC appealed an earlier judgment. Picture: Russell Shakespeare.

Travel behemoth Flight Centre has been drawn back into a stoush with the competition regulator over long-running allegations that it attempted to fix the price of international flights.

The High Court will now hear the case after the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission was granted special leave to appeal the decision of the Federal Court, which ruled in Flight Centre’s favour in July last year.

At that time the decision in Flight Centre’s favour was unanimous and the ACCC was ordered to pay the travel group’s legal costs for both the initial Federal Court case and the appeal.

The ACCC was also required to refund $11 million in penalties to Flight Centre.

“We are disappointed that the ACCC chose to continue this long-running test case, following the clear and unanimous judgment in Flight Centre’s favour in July last year, and we will once again vigorously defend our position,” said Flight Centre’s managing director Graham Turner in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.

“Given that it is now some six years after the ACCC first requested information from us, we look forward to this matter finally being resolved in the High Court.”

Mr Turner said Flight Centre had sought to deliver cheaper airfares to the travelling public for more than 30 years.

“We are not in the business of attempting to make airfares more expensive and we will continue to fight to be able to seek access to all fares to ensure the millions of customers that we serve are not forced to pay more for their flights,” Mr Turner said.

Flight Centre said that in the July 2015 decision the full bench of the Federal Court found that the primary judge in the initial case, which was launched six year’s ago, erred in various areas, including the finding that “Flight Centre and the airlines competed in a market for distribution and booking services”.

The case will go to a full hearing of the High Court later in the year.