Plaintiff claims suffered damages in Korean Air Lines price fixing conspiracy SEATTLE, Aug. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro filed a class action lawsuit against Korean Air Lines (NYSE:KAL) on August 8, 2007 on behalf of passengers claiming the airline illegally conspired with competitors to fix pricing for flights between the United States and Korea for both airline passengers and cargo flights. The complaint claims the airline is in violation of both the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, the first of which Korean Air has admitted guilt to in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division and has agreed to a $300 million fine for its actions. The fine is the first in the antitrust division's investigation into the airline industry. British Airways was also levied a $300 million fine for price fixing on passenger flights. "There is no doubt that the airline industry is highly competitive, but we think trying to make a profit by price fixing is wrong," said lead attorney and HBSS managing partner, Steve Berman. "It appears that legal action like ours is the only way to get their attention and stop these practices." The named plaintiff, James Van Horn, filed the suit on behalf of himself and all others who purchased a ticket on Korean Air from January 1, 2000 until at least July 16, 2006. Van Horn is seeking redress for the increased pricing of passenger air transportation as a result of "the illegal combination and conspiracy" to inflate prices which was agreed upon between Korean Air and its unnamed co-conspirators. The filed complaint goes on to state the "defendant and its co-conspirators entered into and engaged in a combination and conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition by fixing the price for passenger air fares." "We know from our investigation that this alleged practice could have impacted hundreds of thousands of travelers in the U.S. and Korea," said Berman. "Six years is a long time to be charging artificially inflated prices and we want those customers to be rightfully reimbursed." The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle and seeks compensatory, statutory and exemplary relief for damages suffered by the plaintiff and the proposed class. According to the filed complaint the single count being held against the airline is a violation of the Sherman Act. About Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro The law firm of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro is based in Seattle with offices in Chicago, Cambridge, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco. Since the firm's founding in 1993, it has developed a nationally recognized practice in class-action and complex litigation. Among recent successes, HBSS has negotiated a pending $300 million settlement as lead counsel in the DRAM memory antitrust litigation; a $340 million recovery on behalf of Enron employees which is awaiting distribution; a $150 million settlement involving charges of illegally inflated charges for the drug Lupron, and served as co-counsel on the Visa/Mastercard litigation which resulted in a $3 billion settlement, the largest anti-trust settlement to date. HBSS also served as counsel in a $850 million settlement in the Washington Public Power Supply litigation and represented Washington and 12 other states in lawsuits against the tobacco industry that resulted in the largest settlement in the history of litigation. For a complete listing of HBSS cases, visit http://www.hbsslaw.com/. CONTACTS: Steve Berman (206) 623-7292 Mark Firmani (206) 443-9357 Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro Firmani + Associates Inc. DATASOURCE: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro CONTACT: Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, +1-206-623-7292, ; or Mark Firmani of Firmani + Associates Inc., +1-206-443-9357, , for Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro Web site: http://www.hbsslaw.com/

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