A proposed class-action lawsuit accuses the big retail co-op of using its system for fixing prices.
In a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, Ace was named as the defendant and accused of
“converting the cooperative into a sophisticated tool for fixing prices and dividing territory in local markets.”
According to published reports, “the lawsuit claims the co-op organized Ace member stores into geographic ‘Price Zones’ that conspire to limit competition among different stores. This practice that would be perfectly normal for a chain retailer is attacked in the lawsuit as a form of alleged price fixing among independent retailers who happen to be members of the same co-op.”
Also named were Ace Retail Holdings, Ace Retail Group and Epicor Software, described as the co-op’s tech partner. Neither Ace nor Epicor responded to requests for comment by HBS Dealer, which first reported on the suit.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit is Sean Twomey, a Palos Heights, IL, resident who claims that stores in his area were pricing products in a carefully coordinated manner rather than competing against each other in a way that might have lowered prices, the report said. It seeks damages and relief and said it expects the number of class members -those who made purchases at an Ace store during the period covered in the suit-to be more than five million.
