Rail Antitrust Appeal Yields Complex Ruling on Novel Issue (1)

Major freight railroads hoping to exclude certain documents from litigation over their fuel surcharges chipped away at—but failed to overturn—a ruling against them, when a federal appeals court in Washington on Tuesday upheld much of a novel decision in favor of companies leading the antitrust case.

The US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a complex ruling scaling back an earlier victory by freight shippers—including some of the world’s largest companies—but preserving parts of the decision that undermine a main defense asserted by the rail lines.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP antitrust chair Stephen Neuwirth, who represents ...