[B]URLINGTON — Gasoline distributors in northwestern Vermont are seeking to have a class action lawsuit alleging they conspired to fix gas prices thrown out of court.
The lawsuit accuses R.L. Valle Inc., S.B. Collins Inc., Wesco Inc., and Champlain Oil Co. of conspiring to use their collective market power to realize more than $100 million in illegal profits.
Those firms colluded to keep retail and wholesale gas prices higher in Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle counties than in surrounding parts of the state, according to the lawsuit filed over the summer by D.C.-based Bailey Glasser LLP and the Burlington Law Practice PLLC. It also accuses them of raising and lowering their prices in “lockstep.”
As a result, consumers paid illegally high gas prices at retail locations owned by those companies as well as those they didn’t own who had to pay high wholesale prices and compete in the uncompetitive retail market the companies created, according to the complaint.
Attorneys representing each of the four gas companies filed separate motions in Chittenden County Superior Court to dismiss the suit last month. They argue that it should be tossed because it makes no specific allegations as to how the price fixing occurred.
The lawsuit alleges that the companies “discussed and formed their anticompetitive agreements during secret meetings and conversations, often conducted at undisclosed, out-of-the-way locations” with no one else present.
That allegation is “so vague, free of detail, and conclusory that it could be inserted verbatim” into any price fixing complaint in any set of circumstances, writes Jeffrey Behm, with the firm Sheehey Furlong & Behm. Behm is representing S.B. Collins.
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs argue that they are under no obligation to provide those specifics at this point in the case. They say they have offered “extensive economic analysis” of pricing patterns over a significant period of time, as well as a “body of circumstantial evidence” that point to collusion, according to a court filing opposing the motions to dismiss.
“Defendants may move for summary judgement…when discovery is complete. That time has yet to come,” they write.
There are six named plaintiffs and the class action suit is open to “all citizens and businesses of the State of Vermont who purchased unleaded gasoline from June 1, 2005 to the present, either (a) from any gasoline station owned by the Defendants in the Class Area, or (b) from any gasoline station the Defendants supplied at wholesale in the Class Area,” according to the two firms bringing the lawsuit.
High costs at the pumps in northwestern Vermont have long drawn scrutiny from elected officials. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has called for a federal investigation into the gas price discrepancy in the state, and he held a congressional field hearing on the issue in 2012. The Vermont Legislature held a public hearing on the issue last session.
During a failed bid for lieutenant governor last year, former state Rep. Dean Corren held a news conference with Attorney General Bill Sorrell highlighting the issue.
The gasoline companies’ attorneys have until Dec. 11 to file another motion supporting their request that the case be dismissed prior to discovery, according to the Burlington Free Press, which first reported the development.
