KEY POINTS:
Air New Zealand accuses the Commerce Commission of "grandstanding" to justify its existence after 13 airlines were accused of acting in a cartel to skim up to $600 million from freight customers.
The airline's general counsel, John Blair, said it had spent millions of dollars on internal investigations that had not found any evidence of price fixing or cartel behaviour and had given hundreds of thousands of documents to the commission.
"We have repeatedly asked the Commerce Commission to present us with any evidence to indicate that Air New Zealand has breached any laws," Mr Blair said. "It has been either unwilling or unable to do so."
The commission yesterday started High Court action against the airlines and seven airline staff, including senior executives, for "extensive and long-term cartel activity in the air cargo market".
Four former Air NZ employees and one current cargo division staff member are believed to have been named.
The commission says airlines throughout the world colluded to raise the price of carrying cargo by imposing fuel surcharges for six years, and by colluding on a security surcharge after the 2001 US terror attacks.
Commission chairwoman Paula Rebstock said the total freight revenue of the airlines allegedly involved totalled nearly $3 billion. Overseas cartels usually pushed up prices by between 10 per cent and 20 per cent, she said.
If convicted the airlines face fines of tens of millions of dollars. In similar cases overseas, billions of dollars in fines and penalties have been imposed and at least three staff have been jailed.
The commission said that although the case potentially involved 60 airlines and a great number of individuals throughout the world, it had focused on those airlines which had the greatest impact on New Zealand as well as the most culpable individuals.
Mr Blair said the commission action was "clearly an approach designed to justify their existence and seems more about grandstanding than about getting to the bottom of the allegations and facilitating a co-operative approach from the airlines."
But the commission said it had followed the standard process.
"Those airlines that have been co-operating with the commission understand that process," a spokeswoman said. "The commission is keen to meet Air New Zealand should it decide to co-operate."
Qantas, another accused airline, has already been convicted in Australia and the United States, where an executive was sentenced to jail. It and British Airways are co-operating with the commission here.
Other airlines, including Cathay Pacific, Emirates and Singapore Airlines Cargo, said yesterday they would fight the action.
