Qantas has agreed to pay a US $26.5 million settlement for an air cargo price-fixing cartel. The investigation into 19 airlines concerns their freight operation from 2006 and was initiated by Paradiso, a Californian women's clothing retailer. Paradiso, acting on behalf of itself and other importers of goods, claimed the carriers illegally conspired to fix, raise or maintain surcharges levied after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and the first Iraq war in 2003.
After this settlement Qantas is now free of such cases in the US but still faces a $200 million class action brought against it in Australia.