(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – A newly filed lawsuit accuses Casey’s General Stores and an Iowa Board of Regents member of colluding with others as part of an illegal conspiracy to limit competition at convenience store fuel pumps. The lawsuit was filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa by a JF Acquisitions, a North Carolina company that builds and installs gasoline pumps found at convenience stores. The defendants in the case are Seneca Companies, based in Des Moines; OWL Services, a Michigan corporation; and Trive Capital Management, a Texas private equity firm. Although the lawsuit claims Casey’s General Stores and Iowa Board of Regents member JC Risewick are involved in the alleged conspiracy, they are not named as defendants in the case. Risewick is the chief strategy officer for OWL Services and the former owner of Seneca, according to Board of Regents records.

While significant portions of JF Acquisitions’ court petition are redacted from public view without explanation, the company argues that Trive has been consolidating the gas-pump distribution and servicing industry throughout the United States. Trive is alleged to have created OWL Services, which the lawsuit calls “a rollup of several fuel-dispenser distribution, installation and service companies.” In 2024, the lawsuit claims, Trive quietly added an OWL competitor, Seneca, to its portfolio and never publicly announced the deal or informed regulators of it due to “obvious competition concerns.” This lack of disclosure extended to a state conflict-of-interest report filed by Risewick, the Iowa Board of Regents member, the lawsuit claims.

Risewick allegedly disclosed his affiliation with Seneca and OWL, but not with Trive — a “potentially relevant omission given the fact that the University of Iowa Foundation is a limited partner in multiple Trive funds,” the lawsuit claims. Following Trive’s acquisition of Seneca, the lawsuit claims, the defendants allegedly engaged in “exclusionary and predatory conduct” aimed at cementing their combined market power and diminishing competition in the fuel-dispenser distribution and servicing market in Iowa and southern Illinois. JF Acquisitions alleges it has been “the chief target” of these “anti-competitive measures.” Specifically, the lawsuit claims the defendants have tried to exclude JF Acquisitions from the market by “cutting it off from the customer, supplier, and employee relationships that are essential” for JF to do business in Iowa and Illinois.

This store on Des Moines’ Park Avenue is part of the Casey’s General Store chain. (Photo by Clark Kauffman/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

The defendants allegedly did this by entering into what JF Acquisitions calls “an unlawful conspiracy — including each of the defendants and Casey’s General Stores, one of JF’s most significant customers nationally and the largest convenience store chain in the Midwest region — pursuant to which Casey’s has agreed with defendants that it will all but entirely boycott JF” in Iowa and southern Illinois. The lawsuit also alleges the defendants have engaged in a “smear campaign” against JF Acquisitions that has included misrepresentations concerning the latter’s capacity to legally service stores in Iowa and Illinois. Seneca, the lawsuit claims, has also attempted to “intimidate its workforce” through the unreasonable enforcement of broad noncompete agreements with hourly workers who service gas pumps. In one instance, Seneca allegedly sued a former employee who sought employment with a competitor. The worker was then ordered to pay more than $70,000, although the man’s total wages amounted to only $31,000 per year.

The lawsuit alleges that as part of the purported conspiracy, Risewick wrote to one fuel-distribution company “in an effort to thwart JF’s entry into the market.” The lawsuit appears to then quote from the Risewick letter, but all of the relevant text is redacted from public view. As further evidence of Risewick’s alleged role in the matter, the lawsuit alleges Risewick is “a close personal friend of Darren Rebelez, the chairman and CEO of Casey’s.” On Feb. 28, 2024, Risewick emailed Rebelez, the lawsuit states, “and suggested (redacted).” The lawsuit also appears to quote from “private text messages,” including one from the head of procurement for Casey’s to Risewick — although, again, the actual content of the purported text message is redacted from the court filing. Risewick was appointed to the Iowa Board of Regents on June 21, 2022, by Gov. Kim Reynolds. His term expires on April 30, 2025.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for monopolization and conspiracy to restrain trade in violation of the federal laws known as the Sherman Act, as well as conspiracy to restrain and monopolize trade in violation of the Iowa Competition Law and tortuous interference with prospective business relationships in violation of state law. The defendants have yet to file a response to the lawsuit.