PWMTrav

Correct. The judge in most cases has all the latitude in the world to grant a party more time to prepare if the nature of the request is reasonable. Granting that request is not a "favor" in any legal sense, it's done in the best interests of justice. For the most part, parties requesting more time are given it unless the request is a pure stall tactic without any legal merit. I'm not an antitrust lawyer, so I can't speak to these particular instances, but the parties' desire to get a merger done doesn't bear on the judge any more than the DOJ's desire to have more time to prepare. Neither is a favor to anyone.

Superguy

Trials commonly last that long and are dragged out. Look at how long Apple vs. Samsung has gone on ...

Superguy

But we do have Dougie's own words about raising fares and fees and reducing capacity should the merger go thru. Don't need a crystal ball to predict what he already said would happen.

Let's also not forget that everything the airlines promised in other mergers about competition, being pro-consumer, etc, has proved to be lies.

But hey, feel free to continue to dispute history and facts the parties to the suit have said ...

PWMTrav

Isn't that primarily a patent suit? Different animal.

dcpatti

When I worked for the PBGC, we had a fairly small team of analysts and attorneys focused on potential future litigation. The bulk of the analysts and attorneys spent their time working on cases that had already been selected for litigation. While the DOJ and the PBGC aren't the same animal, they do work closely together on various matters (along with DOL), and likely have some similar business practices. In other words, just because it's been a year since the potential merger plans were announced doesn't mean the DOJ has had a year to prepare their case. It would be a waste of taxpayer money for them to start building a full-on case the minute the merger plans were announced because if the shareholders or the bankruptcy courts had said No Way, there'd have been no reason for the DOJ to even go to court. So I don't see anything wrong with them requesting time to get their side of the litigation in order, because it means they didn't waste a bunch of my money preparing for a case that might never have happened. Sure, this merger is going to court, but how many mergers never make it past the shareholders? The bankruptcy being in the mix just adds another point where the whole concept could have failed, leaving DOJ no reason to take action.

Also it's quite common in any litigation for one side to want a very rapid court date and another to want a lot of time to prepare; I wouldn't read too much into the strength or weakness of either side based solely on how soon they want to end up in court. Speaking again as a taxpayer, if the DOJ asks for a long turn-around time then they are more likely to get their ducks in a row without having to get further into my pocket to pay temporary staff and overtime; if they're given a short turn-around then it's just more expensive to those of us whose tax money pays for the DOJ. Either way, the DOJ will put their side of things together but since they're paid for by the taxpayers, they have to at least try to do it in the most cost-effective manner.

Superguy

Civil litigation though. The main point was there's no such right to a speedy trial in civil matters. Suits can take years to resolve by the time the trials and subsequent appeals occur.

stockmanjr

I don't think they have a plan B...

FWAAA

Nope. False alarm. Gotta get that scoop, even if it means making things up (like the headline to the original post).

FWAAA

Despite the revisionist history being spouted by AA management and its general counsel ("there is no Plan B"), the merger with US was clearly Plan B.

If the merger is blocked, then the AA creditors will have no other option than to return to Plan A, regardless of its perceived value. Or they could liquidate the company or entertain alternate Plans of Reorganization; neither of those is likely.

Part of Plan A (Horton's stand-alone plan) were planned codeshares with US on the Northeast Shuttle routes plus extensive codeshares with B6 and expansion of codeshares with AS.

As for widespread codesharing with US? Nope. The AA pilot agreement permits domestic codesharing with other airlines as long as the codeshare ASMs account for no more than 50% of the AA ASMs, or, in other words, domestic codeshares can total no more than 1/3 of the total AA+Codeshares. After accounting for the AS and B6 codeshares, AA would not be able to codeshare with US to the same extent as UA codeshares.

LM225

That's a relief. And a reminder to not get worked up about things we hear through the grapevine

ty97

I was wondering this same thing. Has US reached the point of no return in their decision to join OW even if the merger fails? Or are the moves posturing?

perseus11

Regardless, I would assume that if the DOJ case is viewed by say top anti-trust lawyers (both Govt and non-Govt) as weak, they could be accused of wasting tax payer $ by pushing for a later trial date and resolution. I have worked with government officials as part of contracts for many years and the single theme they all have is "don't get accused of spending $ on inappropriate tasks".

Superguy

Technically, the lawyers are right - there is no Plan B - at least as it's usually thought of. Plan A was the original standalone plan, with B being the merger. Plan C would be something other than Plans A or B. If they go back to the original plan, it's not Plan B, it's Plan A. If they end up doing something else, then it would be going to Plan C.

So for all intents and purposes, they are absolutely correct when they said there was no Plan B.

Is your head ready to explode yet?

dcpatti

The only thing that is guaranteed is that, no matter the outcome of the trial or the current state of the DOJ's potential evidence, someone will see it as wasteful. Start prepping in advance so that you can be ready to move quickly and you're tagged as wasteful when the bankruptcy court says No and you don't need to go to court anyway; don't prep in advance and end up hiring a ton of (super expensive) temps and you're labelled as wasteful for not getting the job done without the temps. Push for a later date so you can decrease the temp labor and you're wasteful for not getting it finished sooner.

There's no way to get prepared for something like this without giving someone a chance to call you Wasteful.

cubachao

does this mean US is leaving *A for sure???