Year: 2003

As expected, William A. Robinson, the former principal owner of DHL Airways, now Astar Air Cargo, failed to appear at a deposition hearing in Los Angeles Thursday in the federal probe into the ownership of DHL’s all-cargo airline. In a letter to attorneys for FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service, whose complaint sparked the Department of Transportation probe, Robinson’s attorney, Philip Le B. Douglas, said the deposition will not go forward because Robinson believes his testimony is no longer relevant in light of the airline’s sale Monday to an investor group led by John Dasburg, its chairman and chief executive. Robinson had previously agreed to testify.

“Mr. Robinson no longer has any interest in the proceeding and is no longer a shareholder in DHL. Under these changed circumstances, there’s no point in him testifying,” Douglas said in an interview with JoC Online.

UPS and FedEx responded to Douglas’s letter with a request to Judge Ronnie L. Yoder, the Department of Transportation’s chief administrative law judge, asking him to order Robinson to appear and to impose sanctions if he does not. The sanctions would include the travel costs incurred by attorneys for UPS and FedEx to Los Angeles, where the deposition is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. Pacific time, and other appropriate relief.

FedEx and UPS also stated that the chief judge should draw the inference from Robinson’s refusal to testify that DHL Airways was under the control of Deutsche Post World Net, a German company, and its subsidiary, DHL International, which is based in Brussels. U.S. law requires that U.S. citizens hold 75 percent of the voting stock and 51 percent of the equity in U.S. airlines.

Even with the change in ownership, FedEx and UPS argue that Astar is still controlled by Deutsche Post and DHL International. That, they say, is also a violation of U.S. law.

Another witness who now says he won’t testify is Wolfgang Pordzik, president and chief executive of Deutsche Post World Net USA. Pordzik had been served with a subpoena on June 30 ordering him to be deposed. No date for his deposition had been set. Pordzik’s attorney informed FedEx and UPS that his testimony was no longer relevant since DHL International, the Brussels-based subsidiary of Deutsche Post World Net, the partially privatized German company, had sold its minority stake in DHL Airways to the Dasburg group.

According to UPS and FedEx, Douglas suggested that they go to Federal District Court to obtain a subpoena requiring Robinson to appear. UPS and FedEx said they are prepared to take that course if necessary.

The two U.S. carriers contend that the refusal to make Robinson available for the deposition reflects a strategy designed to elude judicial review of DHL Airways’ ownership. Klaus Zumwinkel, the chief executive of Deutsche Post, and Uwe Doerken, the chief executive of DHL International, have also defied orders to testify in the case.

Robinson, who lives in Idaho and who apparently never took an active role in the airline’s management, had previously agreed to testify voluntarily. The airline was based in San Francisco until about two years when a corporate reorganization led to its separation from DHL Worldwide Express, the U.S.-based ground distribution arm of DHL International. The airline then moved its headquarters to Chicago, and, earlier this year, to Miami.