Cite as: 513 U. S. 138 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
quiring a carrier to comply with the regulations," id., at 349; constitutes a reasonable and necessary means to effect enforcement of the ICC's credit regulations; and protects the intended beneficiaries of the violated regulations, we believe the injunction is authorized under the Act.
In Maislin we concluded the ICC's policy and its interpretation of the Act were "flatly inconsistent with the statutory scheme as a whole." 497 U. S., at 131. We rejected the ICC's enforcement policy, just as we had declined to permit general, nonstatutory equitable defenses in a collection suit. Our concern was that the policy would undercut the whole filed rate system, thus permitting shippers to enforce secret, negotiated, unfiled rates and allowing carriers to discriminate in favor of certain customers. Id., at 130-131.
Neither Maislin nor our other filed rate cases suggest that the filed rate doctrine prohibits the ICC from requiring departure from a filed rate when necessary to enforce other specific and valid regulations adopted under the Act, regulations that are consistent with the filed rate system and compatible with its effective operation. Carriers must comply with the comprehensive scheme provided by the statute and regulations promulgated under it, and their failure to do so may justify departure from the filed rate. In Reiter, for example, we confirmed that the filed rate doctrine "assuredly does not preclude avoidance of the tariff rate . . . through claims and defenses that are specifically accorded by the [Act] itself." 507 U. S., at 266 (emphasis deleted). Here, of course, the ICC can and does rely upon Commercial Metals, governing the powers of the ICC and not the defenses available to shippers. As we acknowledged in Maislin, the ICC can require that filed rates be " 'suspended or set aside' " in various circumstances. 497 U. S., at 126 (quoting Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 260 U. S. 156, 163 (1922)); see also ICC v. American Trucking Assns., supra, at 360 ("[T]he Commission may conduct an investigation into a tariff's lawfulness at any time after it has gone into effect," and
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