Rail Freight Fuel Surcharges

For over a decade, Hausfeld has been at the forefront of antitrust litigation over allegations that the nation’s four largest freight railroads - Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, and Norfolk Southern - colluded on fuel surcharges and overcharged customers by billions of dollars collectively. 

Notably, a federal court determined that Hausfeld and its co-counsel had amassed “strong evidence of conspiracy” and that individual litigation (as opposed to class litigation) is the appropriate vehicle to vindicate antitrust claims, which prompted dozens of prominent shippers—many of them household names that rank among the Fortune 500—to hire Hausfeld and file suit to recover damages. In this current phase of litigation, Hausfeld represents a wide range of direct-purchaser plaintiffs on an individual basis, including market leaders from the automotive, energy, food services, logistics, and chemicals sectors, among other affected industries.

Hausfeld and its co-counsel are currently in the midst of dispositive briefing on summary judgment and Daubert issues, having successfully navigated the cases through fact and expert discovery. Once this briefing cycle is complete and ruled on by the court, Hausfeld expects that trials will be scheduled for 2025 or early 2026, at which point juries can consider the defendant railroads’ anticompetitive conduct and damages.

These cases exemplify Hausfeld’s tenacious approach to claimant-side antitrust litigation and its ability to advocate seamlessly for its clients.