NEW YORK — A lawsuit accusing Union Pacific Railroad Co. and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. (BNSF) of price-fixing and other antitrust violations has been dismissed by a federal court.

The suit by West Palm Beach, Fla.-based coal company Oxbow Carbon & Minerals LLC and subsidiaries claimed they had been harmed by unfair pricing and inferior rail freight services resulting from Union Pacific’s and BNSF’s conduct.

The group alleged that the two railways had conspired "to fix prices by the use of a uniform fuel surcharge that bore no relationship to actual fuel costs," according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia in June 2011.

"The complaint lacks factual allegations about how the alleged agreement came about, the basic terms of the agreement itself, or how the defendants used the agreement to monopolize the rail freight market," according to the ruling dismissing the lawsuit.

Oxbow said in 2011 that it had paid more than $30 million in wrongfully imposed fuel surcharges and was seeking three times the damages plus legal fees, costs, interest and other relief (amm.com, June 8, 2011).