From the States: Marathon loses battle over below-cost sales law

摘要

The attempt by Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s retailsubsidiary Speedway to strike down provisions of NewJersey’s below-cost statutes for fuel was dealt a blowrecently by the state’s Superior Court.Marathon did not respond to an inquiry on whether it willappeal the decision.The case dated back to October 2016, when theMiddlesex County Department of Weights and Measures filedcomplaints against Speedway regarding selling gasolinebelow cost at a station in that county. Speedway, thanks toits purchase of Hess Retail in 2014, owns and operates about70 c-stores with fuel in the Garden State.The original law that prohibits below-cost selling bydealers goes all the way back to 1938. It has been tweakeda few times and is now known as the Uniform Motor FuelsPractices Act. Since 2008, there have been attempts in thestate legislature to change the rules, but none of thosechanges have been enacted. The basic premise of the lawis that retailers cannot sell gasoline at a price that is belowthe net cost of the fuel, plus all selling expenses, includinggeneral overhead and business costs.