[Request for Review of GSA Actions]

A firm requested a GAO review of deductions taken by the General Services Administration (GSA) to recover alleged overcharges paid to the requester and its connecting carriers for air transportation services. GSA deducted the alleged overcharges both from payments due the requester and from payments due other carriers for shipments for which the requester was the connecting carrier. In those cases, the delivering carrier deducted the amount in question from its payments due the requester. The alleged overcharges are based on the difference between the requester's commercial rates and the rates included in a tender executed by the requester in 1971 and these charges are also the subject of litigation in the U.S. Claims Court. For all but 15 months of the period in question, the carrier was exempted from any tariff-filing requirements. However, most of the shipments occurred in the period preceding the tariff regulation. GAO believed that the carrier should be refunded deductions taken for shipments made during and after the period of tariff regulation, but not for those shipments made prior to the regulation period. GAO found that the requester could claim a refund of the deductions of a billing carrier of which it had subrogation rights. GAO recommended that, where refunds were in order, GSA should refund an overcharge deducted from moneys owed a carrier other than the requester only after the requester provides a waiver of claim from the carrier. Accordingly, GAO allowed a portion of the requester's claim as specified above, but denied the claim pertaining to deductions made by GSA from all payments due prior to the date of tariff regulation.