Every city, town, and fire district in the country needs fire trucks, and for more than a decade, the companies that make them may have been taking advantage of that fact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A new federal multidistrict litigation, In re: Fire Apparatus Antitrust Litigation<\/em>, is now centralized in the Eastern District of Wisconsin before U.S. District Judge William C. Griesbach. The case puts three of the largest fire truck manufacturers in the country \u2014 REV Group, Oshkosh Corporation, and Rosenbauer America \u2014 at the center of allegations that they conspired to fix prices, suppress competition, and overcharge the municipalities, fire departments, and fire districts that had no choice but to buy from them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What Are the Allegations?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The lawsuits allege that from at least January 2016 through the present, the defendants \u2014 who, along with related entities, dominate the U.S. fire apparatus market \u2014 engaged in anticompetitive conduct in violation of federal antitrust law and various state laws. According to plaintiffs across multiple actions, the alleged scheme worked on two fronts: artificially restraining the production of fire trucks to limit supply, and exchanging competitively sensitive pricing information among competitors, which allegedly also distorted competitive bidding in public procurement processes and resulted in inflated prices and reduced competitive pressure in municipal fire truck acquisitions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When competitors share pricing information and coordinate to restrict supply, prices increase by design. Fire departments and municipalities are forced to pay inflated prices for necessary equipment to protect their constituencies <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Fire Apparatus Manufacturers’ Association (FAMA) is also named as a defendant, as plaintiffs allege that some of the coordination occurred through this trade association. Also implicated are affiliates of American Industrial Partners, a private equity firm whose acquisitions of fire apparatus companies are alleged to have contributed to the consolidation of market power at the center of this case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Why Centralization Matters<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n When similar lawsuits are filed in multiple federal courts around the country, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) has the authority to consolidate them in a single court for pretrial proceedings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Panel found that the cases share common questions of fact; its overlapping issues make consolidated pretrial litigation both efficient and fair. Centralization does not resolve the underlying claims. It sets the stage for organized, coordinated litigation where those claims can be efficiently developed and tested. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Who Is Suing?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The plaintiffs include municipalities and fire departments from across the United States. Cities including Revere and Chelsea in Massachusetts, Roseland in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, along with hundreds of other private fire companies and fire districts, are among those already in the MDL. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What Is at Stake<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fire apparatus procurement is a significant budget line for local governments. Fire truck prices have doubled in the last decade. A pumper truck that cost $500,000 in the mid-2010s now runs closer to $1 million, and more specialized trucks that used to cost $900,000 now exceed $2 million. Fire departments do not have much market leverage because they need the equipment, the product is highly specialized, and there are only a handful of major manufacturers. That structural dependence, plaintiffs argue, is precisely what made it possible for manufacturers to exploit their market position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If the allegations are proven, municipalities and fire departments may be entitled to recover the overcharges they paid \u2014 money that came out of public budgets, and ultimately, taxpayers’ pockets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What Comes Next<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The litigation is now in its early stages under Judge Griesbach’s supervision. In the coming months, we will see attorneys appointed to positions of centralized leadership, and case management conferences will structure the timeline for filing, discovery, and the broader development of the factual record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Napoli Shkolnik’s attorneys are actively working on this litigation and can help you understand whether your organization has a claim. If you represent a municipality, fire department, or fire district that purchased fire apparatus since 2016, contact us today to explore your options.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every city, town, and fire district in the country needs fire trucks, and for more than a decade, the companies that make them may have been taking advantage of that…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":22403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[803],"tags":[1498,1499],"class_list":["post-22402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-product-litigation","tag-fire-truck","tag-price-fixing"],"acf":[],"page_builder_type":"gutenberg","gutenberg_data":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22770,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22402\/revisions\/22770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.napolilaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}