Cite as: 511 U. S. 431 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
Petitioner argues that the effect of the void-for-non-participation rule is to allow transactions to be governed by secretly negotiated rates, rather than the publicly filed rates mandated by the Act. Petitioner would thus have us see the ICC's recent enforcement of its void-for-nonparticipation regulation as merely an attempt to evade Maislin and undermine the filed rate doctrine by keeping trustees or debtorsin-possession from recovering for undercharges.
The argument is an odd one.4 The filed rate requirement mandates that carriers charge the rates filed in a tariff. We held in Maislin, supra, that the requirement was not subject to discretionary enforcement when raised against a shipper
4 We have no occasion even to reach its factual predicate, which is vigorously disputed. Security Services argues that the agency failed to enforce its regulation from amendment in 1984 until 1993. Petitioner contends that the ICC routinely accepted tariffs containing methods for computing distances that were not authorized by 49 CFR § 1312.30(c) (1993), and that from 1984 to 1988, approximately 40 percent of all motor carriers filing distance rate tariffs referring to HGCB mileage guides did so without formally participating in them. See Overland Express, 996 F. 2d, at 359. Petitioner states that the ICC took no action after discovering these failures to participate. The Government argues that the ICC currently enforces its void-for-nonparticipation rule. It represents, for example, that in fiscal year 1993, the ICC "entered 24 consent decrees with carriers who had let their participations in mileage guides and other tariffs lapse, . . . sought and obtained one injunction, and . . . issued an order pursuant to its broad remedial powers" directing carriers who had let their participation in the HGCB lapse either to renew their participation or "strike any reference" to the Mileage Guide in their tariffs. Tr. of Oral Arg. 42. The Government also disputes the assertion that 40 percent of carriers referring to an HGCB guide failed to participate in the guide. The Government and Kmart claim that HGCB found only 111 such failures among the filings of some 12,800 carriers who referred to HGCB guides, and that the ICC has taken action for failure to participate. See Household Goods Carriers' Bureau, Inc.—Petition for Cancellation of Tariffs of Non-Participating Carriers, 9 I. C. C. 2d 378 (1993); National Motor Freight Traffic Assn.—Petition for Cancellation of Tariffs That Refer to the National Motor Freight Classification, but are Filed by or on Behalf of Non-Participating Carriers, 9 I. C. C. 2d 186 (1992).
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