O.N.E. Shipping Ltd. v. Flota Mercante Grancolombiana, S.A.
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
830 F.2d 449 (1987)
- Written by John Reeves, JD
Facts
The country of Colombia passed several laws explicitly intended to favor Colombian shipping companies over non-Colombian shipping companies. The laws mandated that the first 50 percent of imports into Colombia be shipped on vessels owned either directly by Colombia or by a Colombian company. A Colombian company—Flota Mercante Grancolombiana, S.A. (Flota) (defendant)—entered into an agreement with both Andino Chemical Shipping, Inc. (Andino) (defendant), a Panama corporation, and Transligra, S.A. (defendant), an Ecuadoran corporation, to handle trade for both of them on Colombia’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. O.N.E. Shipping, Ltd., (O.N.E.) (plaintiff) was a Bermuda corporation providing shipping services from the United States to Colombia. Because of Colombia’s policies favoring Colombian ships for imports, Flota, Andino, and Transligra ended up controlling the vast majority of shipping imports, excluding O.N.E. almost completely. O.N.E. brought an antitrust lawsuit against Flota, Andino, and Transligra in United States district court, alleging a host of antitrust violations. O.N.E. acknowledged that the alleged antitrust violations directly resulted from Colombia’s laws, and that the country’s motivation in passing those laws was to favor its own companies over other countries in a manner that would be unlawful under United States antitrust law. The district court dismissed the case under the act-of-state doctrine.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Pollack, J.)
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