Lawsuit filed to stop DL takeover of NW

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

S.F. suit seeks to halt Delta-Northwest merger

[timeos2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close timeos2]

If its no more successful than the RCI and Wyndham class action suits then this won't mean much to anyone. Airlines are going to merge to survive. A lawsuit to stop this one will just push them to other choices.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

The lawyers must beleive that they have a viable anti-trust case. Monopolistic practices do happen to be illegal in the US.

The DL/NW business plan is also not something that is going to help survival. DL had to buy off its pilots with a wage increase to get them to go along, something that wasn't done for NW pilots. Rubbing salt into the wounds to create labor strife is not exactly a recipe for success in the airline industry. Neither is unnecessarily running up labor costs at a time that fuel prices are already a problem. Then there is all the money they will owe to state of Michigan when they move their headquarters and other facilities out of the state, and thus fail to comply with conditions of previous state incentive grants.

In addition to those minuses, this takeover / merger lacks the usual pluses, as they have in their plan not to close and consolidate any hubs. That is a usual way to achieve savings in a merger, but NOT in THIS one! They have also promises to NOT do some other usual cost saving things, as well, to try to grease the political skids in DC, but again, that means they don't get many of the normal advantages one would normally get from a merger.

Then one has to look back at the history of mergers in the airline industry, where many seemed promising initially and turned out to be real duds in the end. This one has more than the usual signs of such a result.

If it wasn't for a few personal factors for the leadership, like Dougie Steenland's golden parachute, this takeover would never have happened. It is just stupid for the airline with the best cash position among US majors to tie itself to a sinker like DL.

[bnoble Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bnoble]

The lawyers must beleive that they have a viable anti-trust case.

Call me cynical, but I think this is far too high a standard. I suspect the lawyers only need to believe that somehow this will help them get paid or elected.

In Alioto's case, I suspect the answer lies in a little bit of both.

[x3skier Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close x3skier]

The lawyers must beleive that they have a viable anti-trust case.

All lawyers have to believe is they get money from somebody for something. Merits of a case have little if anything to do filing a lawsuit anymore, especially in the 9th Circuit, the most reversed jurisdiction in the entire USA.

Cheers

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

If they file a completely frivolous case, they collect no fees unless these 28 plaintiffs are financing this thing themselves, which I highly doubt. The other big danger in a completely frivolous case is they could get scked with a Rule 11 motion to pay the airlines legal fees as well. Law firms do not take risks like that.

The more I think about this, the more I wonder if the real players here may be the labor unions at NW who are fiercely opposed to this merger / takeover. If they are the ones who recruited the plaintiffs and are paying the lawyers, every inch of this case will be hard fought, and they have the deep pockets to do battle with the airlines. It would also mean to settle, what the airlines will have to do is cave to the unions, which I suspect will not be a mere token gesture, rather than do anything major for the passengers,

The one thing that this lawsuit may accoplish is kicking the federal review into the next administration, which could well be a game changer, in and of itself.

[x3skier Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close x3skier]

The more I think about this, the more I wonder if the real players here may be the labor unions at NW who are fiercely opposed to this merger / takeover. If they are the ones who recruited the plaintiffs and are paying the lawyers,

I believe that is very close the reason Millberg Weiss is now close to being defunct if they are not already, and a few of them are on their way to prison. They "recruited" plaintiffs for a shareholder suit and then paid a percentage to the plaintiffs. If the lawyers "recruited" the plaintiffs in the similar way class action lawyers "recruit" plaintiffs for drug suits, etc via TV ads, it is probably OK.

If the Unions wanted to sue, I suppose they have no reason to hide behind a somewhat shady arrangement. If they do go on strike, NW is circling the drain, again.

Cheers

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

I believe that is very close the reason Millberg Weiss is now close to being defunct if they are not already, and a few of them are on their way to prison. They "recruited" plaintiffs for a shareholder suit and then paid a percentage to the plaintiffs. If the lawyers "recruited" the plaintiffs in the similar way class action lawyers "recruit" plaintiffs for drug suits, etc via TV ads, it is probably OK.

If the Unions wanted to sue, I suppose they have no reason to hide behind a somewhat shady arrangement. If they do go on strike, NW is circling the drain, again.

Cheers

I don't know that employees would have standing in an anti-trust lawsuit, which is over the impact on consumers. Thus my suggestion that the union (not the lawyers) may have recruited the plaintiffs.