stockholder vote
 

Is the NWA/DAL stockholder vote today? After this is the DOJ the last thing and is it complete from the day they sign it? Do you guys expect to see a lot of route changes real quick when it is done?

Those are open ended Q's Short answer yes.
NWA board just approved merger

Delta Board just approved the merger. Next stop SLI and DOJ approval.

Not quite done. There is a lawsuit to block the merger that will be heard in LA on the 5th of Nov. This has to be settled before the merger can be completed. The merits of this suit are suspect. Don't expect a problem, just a nusiance

This lawsuit does not have to be settled before DOJ approval. By law, the courts do not have jurisdiction over airline mergers. It is the sole authority of the DOJ. I'm not a lawyer, but I've heard this from many of the talking head lawyers on TV, and it seems right because, if a nuisance lawsuit in some local court could derail airline mergers, there would never be airline mergers.

Carl

Carl,

I think most of us agree that this lawsuit is a nuisance, suspect, and should be thrown out immediately. My question for you is if DOJ is the sole authority then why wasn't the lawsuit summarily dismissed in a previous court appearance? I would think the lawyers for Delta/Northwest would have tried to do this. Seems to me by taking the lawsuit to trial, the judge on the case may not agree with you! :D

Oh I don't disagree with that at all. Especially California courts. The 9th circuit court of appeals in San Francisco is the single most over-turned court in the nation. Some of the Supreme court rulings that over-turned their opinions were jurisdictional. That is, the court had no standing to even hear the case in the first place.

In my non-lawyer opinion, this is such an example. I don't know whether the case has just been scheduled, or whether it is too early for the defendants bar to have even entered a motion for summary judgement dismissal due to the court's lack of standing. If summary judgement motions have already come and gone, then this court is embarking on an almost certain reversal on appeal.

Do we have any lawyer lurkers out there that care to render their opinion on this?

Carl

Yeah, that's probably why they brought the case into court in SFO!! I expect this to be a fairly short trial and summary judgment in Delta's favor. If not, I would expect it to be thrown out on an appeal even if it has to go to the Supreme court. (Not a lawyer here :D )

Denny