Energy supplier and convenience-store retailer Global Partners filed a lawsuit Friday against the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), accusing the agency of willfully violating the Massachusetts Public Records Law by failing to provide in a timely manner key documents related to the awarding of a service plaza lease to Irish c-store retailer Applegreen.
- Global Partners is No. 25 on CSP’s 2025 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count. Applegreen is No. 47.
A major highway service plaza operator in the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom, Applegreen operates approximately 440 locations and has more than 700 branded food and beverage offers, and 1,385 EV charging ports serving millions of travelers. The company operates 113 service plazas in the United States.
In June, MassDOT awarded Applegreen the 35-year lease to raze and rebuild nine rest stops and refurbish nine others across Massachusetts. The company invested $750 million in the project.
Global Partners is a master limited partnership (MLP) that distributes fuels to wholesalers, retailers and commercial customers. In addition, the Waltham, Massachusetts-based company owns, operates or supplies approximately 1,700 gas stations and convenience stores across the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic and Texas. C-store brands include Alltown Fresh, Honey Farms and XtraMart.
In February, Global Partners submitted a proposal to provide for the generation of approximately $1.5 billion in guaranteed revenue for MassDOT, according to court documents. The company said its proposal provided for approximately $900 million in guaranteed revenue “over and above” Applegreen’s proposal.
“For reasons unexplained,” MassDOT’s board awarded the project to Applegreen, Global Partners said in the court documents, filed in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston.
Despite submitting four “formal and narrowly tailored” records requests since June, Global Partners alleges that MassDOT has failed to produce important communications, evaluations and records within the time frames required by state law as the agency proceeds with final lease negotiations with Applegreen “behind closed doors,” aiming to sign the deal by early November.
“This is a blatant attempt to run out the clock on transparency,” said Eric Slifka, president and CEO of Global Partners. “MassDOT is stonewalling the public’s right to know while rushing to lock in a decades-long deal that could cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion in lost guaranteed revenue.”
The lawsuit claims that MassDOT allegedly failed to comply with multiple requests for records, including communications between Selection Committee Chair Scott Bosworth and Applegreen, Applegreen backer Blackstone Infrastructure Partners and Suffolk Construction; conflicts of interest disclosures and recusals; and text messages, emails and other communications between MassDOT selection committee members and MassDOT board members regarding accounting firm KPMG’s review of the revenue aspects of the competing proposals.
According to the complaint, Global Partners was alerted to potential conflicts of interest and irregularities in the lease award following a June 18 MassDOT board meeting. Bosworth allegedly sought employment with Blackstone prior to the request for proposal (RFP) process, and the RFP was amended five times post-issuance with changes that favored private equity-backed bidders like Applegreen, Global Partners said. Global Partners said it was notified it was not selected by the selection committee an hour before that committee presented their recommendation to the Capital Projects Committee for approval. Also, Bosworth failed to disclose what Global Partners alleges was Applegreen’s poor performance on a $450 million New York project while promoting their qualifications to the board.
“MassDOT’s conduct threatens the integrity of the entire procurement process,” said Sean Geary, Chief Legal Officer of Global Partners. “The agency has failed to timely comply with the law, ignored red flags throughout the process and kept the public in the dark as it speeds toward a signing deadline.”
The suit seeks a court order compelling MassDOT to immediately release all responsive public records. It also requests injunctive relief to prevent further concealment.
MassDOT has acknowledged some document production, but only after pressure from third parties, including media outlets, Global Partners said. Other key materials, including internal deliberations and conflict disclosures, remain undisclosed or unjustifiably withheld, it said.
“This isn’t just a fight about one contract,” said Slifka. “This is about public trust, proper governance and making sure decisions of this magnitude aren’t buried in secrecy.”
Applegreen responds
“Applegreen is not a party to this suit and cannot comment on any of the specifics; however, we must be clear that the suit repeats a number of misrepresentations and inaccuracies that Global has issued, all of which have previously been debunked by both third parties and the Commonwealth,” a spokesperson for Dublin-based Applegreen told CSP.
“Disappointingly, in this lawsuit, Global is once again wasting the Commonwealth’s time and taxpayer dollars in a desperate attempt to reverse an exhaustive two-year process and an award that was made on its merits. Applegreen won because we had the best proposal: best for the Commonwealth and best for consumers,” the spokesperson said. “These are not the actions of a professional organization who cares about the Commonwealth and its residents, but of a business unable to accept that the multiple shortcomings in their proposal and a complete lack of successful hospitality experience in service plazas cost it a long-term contract.”
Meanwhile, in a statement provided to CSP, Blackstone, the New York-based company said, “There is absolutely no truth to Global Partners’ allegations in relation to Blackstone. There were no discussions about potential employment with Blackstone, any of its funds or its portfolio companies with any MassDOT official at any point during, or in connection with, this process. Any suggestion otherwise is completely false and intentionally misleading.”
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