The dispute between the operators and Exxon Mobil Corp. was sparked by a decision the company made in June 2008 to sell off gas stations it still owned and leased to the small-business owners who ran them essentially under a franchise system. ExxonMobil wanted to exit the direct-retail [image-nocss] gasoline market because of its hyper-competitiveness and low profit margins, and it has sought to sell its holdings to other smaller companies, such as distributors, which would continue to sell gasoline under its brand name.
The station operators claim ExxonMobil should give them the first chance to buy the stations that they lease and operate from the oil refiner, under a federal law known as the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act.
But ExxonMobil's attorney, Mark Lillie, argued that ExxonMobil has not yet moved to sell the properties of the 55 dealers who filed the lawsuit, so the lawsuit and a temporary restraining order weren't necessary.
"The essence of the case is they're concerned something might happen in the future, but hasn't happened yet," Lillie told Judge Alexander Williams Jr., according to a report in The Baltimore Sun.
Williams essentially agreed, noting in his ruling, "[the] plaintiffs cannot show either the termination of the franchise or existence of sufficiently serious questions going to the merits necessary for a court to grant a preliminary injunction."
In arguing against the dismissal, Harry C. Storm, who represents the 65 station operators, said in court that ExxonMobil's contractual language with its station operators went "way too far," forcing them to give up basic rights as gasoline dealers that were enshrined in federal and state law.
After ExxonMobil announced its intention last year to begin selling off its gas-station assets in several states, the Maryland station operators formed Local Dealers United LLC to protect their interests. At the time of the announcement of its plan to sell the stations in coming years, ExxonMobil had about 12,000 branded stations in the United States but owned only about 2,200 of them, according to the newspaper report.
Of those 2,200, about 1,400 are operated by dealers, and the remaining 800 are owned and operated by ExxonMobil. In Maryland, about 170 gas stations are run by station operators who had leased the businesses from ExxonMobil.
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