TRAVEL AGENTS VERSUS AIRLINES IN THE MALTESE COMPETITION LAW 535 (a) Article 9 thereof, which was above referred to; (b) Article 3.1 of the PSAA which stipulates that: “the agent is authorized to sell air passenger transportation on the services of the Carrier and on the services of other air carriers as authorized by the carrier”; (c) Article 3.2 which stipulates that: “all services sold pursuant to this agreement shall be sold on behalf of the carrier and in compliance with carriers’ tariffs, condition of carriage and the written instruction of the carrier as provided to the Agent”; and (d) Article 7.2, which specifically provides that: “all monies collected by the agent for transportation and ancillary services sold under this agreement, including applicable remuneration which the agent is entitled to claim thereunder, are the property of the carrier and must be held by the agent in trust for the carrier on behalf of the carrier until satisfactorily accounted for to the carrier and settlement made”. In view of the arguments above, so submitted before the Civil Court, IATA noted that as the airline commissions were merely commercial arrangements between the airlines and the travel agents, and consequently, all judicial proceedings against it should be dropped. 5. THE FOUR AIRLINES’ DEFENCE PLEAS In their respective replies, the four airlines, which were represented by only one Law Firm, submitted a similar judicial reply for each one. One of the submissions made was that the Civil Court was not the correct forum, as this was of a purely commercial matter, rather than a matter relating to the Competition Act8. The airlines further noted that in line with Article 27 of the Competition Act, theCourt was obliged to send the acts to theDirector General of Competition in order to submit a report to the Civil Court in relation to each case. Article 27 contemplates that: Where before any court of civil jurisdiction it is alleged that any agreement or decision is null and unenforceable in accordance with Article 5 of this Act and, 8 This is a procedural matter which has to be raised at the preliminary stage, as should the Court decide that the issues were of a commercial nature, then this would have meant that the four cases were filed incorrectly, and hence, the cases would have been thrown out before the Court would even hear any further submissions. However, if the Court decides that these cases revolved around Competition Law issues, then the law contemplated that the First Hall, Civil Court had the right to hear such cases.
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