A U.S. District Court in Seattle has dismissed a class-action lawsuit alleging Matson Navigation Co. and Horizon Lines colluded to violate an antitrust law by simultaneously increasing fuel surcharges and other actions in their Hawaiçi and Guam businesses.

The ruling notes the 27 plaintiffs failed to sufficiently show antitrust violations had occurred or the two shipping lines conspired on pricing.
Matson was hit with a spate of lawsuits last year after the U.S. Department of Justice searched Horizon’s offices as part of a U.S. antitrust investigation of pricing practices among carriers serving Puerto Rico.
Matson later became involved in the investigation when it received a grand jury subpoena for documents related to pricing in domestic markets. Matson has about two-thirds of the Mainland-Hawaiçi shipping trade, but does not operate in the Puerto Rico market.
Horizon has a little less than a third of the Mainland-Hawaiçi business.
The lawsuits filed last year and consolidated into a single class-action were generally similar in nature in calling attention to the two shipping companies raising surcharges.