LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Three trucking companies have agreed to settle lawsuits alleging that Pilot Flying J cheated them out of diesel fuel rebates, reported newsnet5.
Attorneys for National Retail Transportation Inc. and Keystone Freight Corp., Bergen County, N.J., and Shoreline Transportation of Alabama Inc., Greenville, Ala., notified U.S. District Court Judge Amul R. Thapar of the settlement agreement in documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
Attorneys for the trucking companies have also notified the court that they are finalizing settlement papers that will be exchanged by the parties, said the report.
Details of the settlement were not disclosed, but Judge Thapar ordered that "if the parties cannot consummate the settlement by Friday, April 10, 2015, then any party may move to restore the case to the court's calendar."
The proposed settlement leaves four trucking companies continuing a consolidated civil lawsuit in federal court.
In February, Thapar ruled that several trucking companies could proceed with claims that Pilot Flying J cheated them out of the rebates. The judge granted Pilot Flying J's motion to dismiss several other cases. He also dismissed seven of 11 civil claims against Jimmy Haslam--the company's CEO and owner of the Cleveland Browns professional football team--and allowed four others to go forward, including accusations of unjust enrichment and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Haslam has not been charged with any crime.
Ten former employees have pleaded guilty to some form of wire or mail fraud since federal agents raided Pilot's Tennessee headquarters in April 2013.
Pilot agreed to pay $92 million in fines and accept responsibility for the criminal conduct of its employees while the government agreed not to prosecute the company. The agreement required Pilot to comply with several conditions, including cooperation in the investigation of people who may have been involved in the fraud. It did not protect any individual at Pilot from prosecution.
FBI special agent Robert H. Root said in an affidavit filed in federal court that the scheme involved sales team members reducing the amount of money that was due to trucking company customers they deemed too unsophisticated to notice. The scheme was widely known in the sales department, according to court documents, with supervisors teaching other employees how to do it.
Court records said the scheme lasted from at least 2007 until an FBI raid in April 2013.
Knoxville, Tenn.-based Pilot Flying J, the largest operator of truckstops in North America, has more than 650 retail locations.
Click here to view the full newsnet5 report.
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