Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin Gas Station Accused of Inflating Gas Prices in Lawsuit

Americans, myself included, love to bemoan the price of gas. It's one of the quintessential pass-times of a nation being gouged at the pump, checkout lines at grocery stores, service shops, and damn near anywhere in this day-and-age.

A new lawsuit filed against one of the most popular gas stations in all of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin alleges more nefarious acts are at play.

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Per the Iowa Capital Dispatch, and several other sources, a newly filed lawsuit accuses Casey's General Stores and an Iowa Board of Regents member of collusion as part of a larger, illegal conspiracy that both limits competition at convenience store fuel stations and raises prices for people like you and me.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa by JF Acquisitions, per Iowa Capital Dispatch. JF is a North Carolina company that builds and installs a variety of convenience stores. Meanwhile, the defendants in the case are Seneca Companies (Des Moines); OWL Services (Michigan), and Trive Capital Management (a Texas private equity firm).

JF Acquisitions claims that Trive has been consolidating the gas-pump distribution and servicing industry in the United States. They state that Trive is alleged to have created OWL Services, and later added Seneca (an OWL competitor) to its portfolio in a move that was never publicly disclosed due to "obvious competition concerns."

The aforementioned Iowa Board of Regents member is JC Risewick, who initially filed the conflict-of-interest report, the lawsuit claims. Risewick disclosed his affiliation with Seneca and OWL, but not with Trive.

JF Acquisitions' lawsuit goes even further to state the defendants engaged in "exclusionary and predatory conduct" by harboring their conjoined market power while actively diminishing competition in the fuel-dispenser distribution and servicing market in Iowa and southern Illinois. This type of conspiracy can lead to higher prices for consumers at the pump, and an industry's monopolistic-like reign in a specific region.

The reason Casey's is named in the lawsuit is because it's one of JF's most significant customers on the national level. It is also the largest convenience store chain in the Midwest. The old joke remains that even in the most remote locations in Iowa, there's either a Casey's or Dollar General somewhere nearby.

Read more about the newly filed lawsuit on Iowa Capital Dispatch's website.