Northwestern Vermont gas distributors have reached a $1.5 million settlement in a class action lawsuit over alleged price gouging.
The settlement, filed in Chittenden County Superior Court Thursday, was a fraction of the $100 million in illegal profits six northwestern Vermont residents say gas companies earned by using their collective market power to keep gas prices artificially high.
Jacob Kent, of Fairfax, and five other plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in 2015, claiming that the distributors — R.L. Vallee Inc., S.B. Collins Inc., Wesco Inc. and Champlain Oil Co. — had “highly effective, long-lasting and concealed agreements” on prices in Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle counties.
The gas distributors, who owned a collective 124 of the area’s 185 gas stations in 2015, have maintained that they operate independently and set prices based on the local market.
If the settlement is approved, a court-appointed administrator will open the claims process to eligible customers — residents in the three northwestern Vermont counties who owned a vehicle and bought gas between April 22, 2012 to June 22, 2015.
High costs at the pumps in northwestern Vermont have long drawn scrutiny from elected officials. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has called for a federal investigation into discrepancies in gas prices across the state, and he held a congressional field hearing on the issue in 2012.
Skip Vallee, a long-time Republican donor and owner of R.L. Vallee Inc., said in an emailed statement that the class action had “political origins,” referring to communications between Sanders and the Vermont attorney general’s office about price fixing.
Vallee and the other plaintiffs sought to obtain a broad swath of documents from Sanders and his staff — a move that was ultimately denied by a federal judge during an appeal. Vallee said that while the defendants were confident they could win in court, the cost of continuing litigation would have exceeded the $1.5 million settlement.
“As we have said all along, we steadfastly, adamantly and completely deny the allegations,” wrote Vallee.
Attorneys from West Virginia firm Bailey and Glasser, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday afternoon.