146
Opinion of the Court
ence. Two substantial reasons support our conclusion that the remedy chosen by the agency is an appropriate one.
First, its remedy appears to the ICC, and to us, necessary to the effective enforcement of its regulations. See Commercial Metals, supra, at 350, 352; see also Hewitt-Robins Inc. v. Eastern Freight-Ways, Inc., 371 U. S. 84, 88 (1962) (remedy allowed where its absence would "plac[e] the shipper entirely at the mercy of the carrier"). Were we to disallow the injunction, respondents and other trustees of bankrupt carriers would be immune, in effect, from enforcement of the credit regulations. Relief limited to prospective injunctions requiring carriers to provide notice of liquidated damages and to send revised bills could have no effect on bankrupt carriers and their trustees. Nor do the Act's remedies for unlawful rates, see 49 U. S. C. §§ 10704(b)(1), 11705(b)(3), allow for adequate enforcement of the credit regulations, for not every credit violation will result in an unlawful rate.
Second, unlike the credit regulation violated in Commercial Metals, which was intended to protect carriers, 456 U. S., at 345-346, the requirements for notice of liquidated damages are to protect shippers from the imposition of penalties without warning. When a carrier fails to provide notice, it is an appropriate remedy for the ICC to bar collection of the liquidated damages, for the remedy serves the regulations' intended beneficiaries. Cf. id., at 344-345 (regulations do not "intimate that a carrier's violation of the credit rules [there at issue] automatically precludes it from collecting the lawful freight charge").
In short, whether or not we would allow shippers to defend against a carrier's collection action by relying on the carrier's violation of credit regulations, it follows from Commercial Metals and our construction of the controlling statute that the ICC has the authority and the discretion to determine appropriate remedies for these violations. Where, as here, the remedy involves "a federal-court injunction re-
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