Court upholds ruling against Exxon to compensate gas station owners
A federal appeals court upheld a $ 500 mm judgment against Exxon that will compensate 10,000 gas station owners who
claimed the company overcharged them for gasoline for 12 years.
The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta announced the ruling.
The case dates to 1982, when Exxon began charging dealers a 3 % processing fee on gasoline sales paid by credit
cards. The company promised to offset the charge by cutting the wholesale cost of the fuel.
Exxon did that for six months, reducing the wholesale price by 1.7 cents a gallon. But by March 1983, it stopped
providing the offset without informing the dealers. The dealers didn’t notice until 1991, when they filed a
class action suit against Exxon. The trial resulted in a hung jury in 1999. The case was retried in Miami in 2001 and
resulted in a unanimous verdict for the dealers.
On average, the station owners will get $ 50,000 each, not counting interest. The money will be distributed to each
owner based on the number of gallons of gasoline bought by credit card at the owner’s station during the
12-year period.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys say the total judgment, with interest, is $ 1.2 bn, or $ 100,000 per dealer.
