{"id":2239,"date":"2026-06-25T22:14:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T22:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2239"},"modified":"2026-06-25T22:14:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T22:14:26","slug":"gas-station-owners-have-found-a-use-case-for-ai-lawsuit-says-colluding-to-fix-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2239","title":{"rendered":"Gas station owners have found a use case for AI, lawsuit says: colluding to fix prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The proposed class action lawsuit, filed Monday, accuses gas station giants including Marathon and Circle K of violating California\u2019s antitrust law through Kalibrate, a fuel-pricing software system used across the world. The plaintiffs describe Kalibrate as the \u201ccentral nervous system for a conspiracy to extinguish retail price competition among gas stations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2237\">Supreme Court hands Bayer a shield against 200,000 Roundup cancer suits<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to the lawsuit, Kalibrate helps \u201ccoordinate high prices\u201d and even discourages its users from pricing their gas lower than competitors, saying that doing so would trigger a \u201cdownward spiral.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cKalibrate promises that if gas stations surrender their pricing decisions and competitively sensitive cost and volume data to Kalibrate Fuel Pricing, the software will enable them to avoid competing with other area stations and to charge higher prices to consumers,\u201d the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n<p>Californians already pay some of the highest gas prices in the nation, and\u00a0prices have surged across the globe\u00a0since the start of the Iran war.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit is the latest to accuse software companies of driving up the cost of living for millions in the U.S. Other examples include the\u00a0Department of Justice\u2019s lawsuit against RealPage, which has been accused of helping landlords drive up rent prices, and the\u00a0DOJ\u2019s lawsuit against Agri Stats, a data-sharing company accused of helping the meatpacking industry inflate grocery prices. The DOJ has settled both of those lawsuits in the past year, though various state attorneys general are still pursuing lawsuits against RealPage and numerous property management companies.<\/p>\n<p>Concern over algorithmic pricing prompted Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year to sign a bill saying that state antitrust law applies to pricing algorithms, helping to pave the way for this week\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Kalibrate is headquartered in Manchester, England, and operates in more than 70 countries. It did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit accuses Kalibrate of facilitating cartel-like collusion. Only this time, instead of competitors making a secret deal \u201cover cigars in a smoky back room,\u201d the price-fixing is done through AI, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2235\">One U.S. college is fixing tuition at just 10% of parental income: \u2018We\u2019re not hiding the cost of college behind secret formulas\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cAs technology has advanced, so too have the mechanisms available to competitors to fix prices without the cigars, the smoke, or even the room,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Among the examples the lawsuit lists is a \u201crestoration\u201d tool that helps \u201cnearly all gas stations in an area raise their prices contemporaneously and by a large amount.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>According to the lawsuit, research into algorithmic fuel-pricing software found average price increases of about 6 cents per gallon, rising to as much as 30 cents per gallon in markets where many stations use the technology.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of the volume of fuel sold across California, a single cent increase at the pump will drain a whopping $134 million from California drivers\u2019 wallets every year across the state,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>The defendants in the lawsuit \u2014 which also include BP, Speedway, EG America, Walmart and Albertsons \u2014 collectively operate more than 1,700 gas stations in California, according to the lawsuit. None of them immediately responded to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit seeks to represent California drivers who bought gas at stations using Kalibrate software since June 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2233\">U.S. companies swallowed the oil shock. They\u2019re not sure they can do it again<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new lawsuit claims AI pricing software helped Marathon, BP, and Circle K fix gas prices across 1,700 California stations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antitrust"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gas station owners have found a use case for AI, lawsuit says: colluding to fix prices - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2239\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gas station owners have found a use case for AI, lawsuit says: colluding to fix prices - 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