Suit Filed Alleging Price Fixing

One week after the Florida Attorney General's office announced that it was looking into improper disclosure of fuel surcharges by several cruise lines, a New York man has filed a class action lawsuit alleging price fixing and collusion. He claims that the fact all the lines have added fuel surcharges indicates they were improperly acting together.

While I do expect the retroactive nature of some of the fuel surcharges to be seriously considered as perhaps improper by the courts (and some of those cases have been filed, in addition to the Florida investigation), I don't think this particular legal theory and class action suit will go too far forward. The cruise industry is much of a follow the leader type industry. Often, they'll wait for one line to take the first step, then follow behind. Airlines have done this for years with price hikes, fuel surcharges and the like, and it's been deemed perfectly proper.

With no more evidence than simply the fact the fuel surcharges were all announced and implemented within a few days of one another, this suit probably won't prevail.