Haslam spoke today to an audience of several hundred fleet and industry representatives at the 2013 Scopelitis Transportation Seminar in Indianapolis, where he gave a brief address before being asked a series of questions by American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves.
Graves asked Haslam directly whether he knew about the scheme, saying that points in the federal affidavit released April 22 indicate Haslam may have known about the alleged defrauding of trucking companies.
Haslam said he “was absolutely not aware” of the skewing of manual rebate adjustments, but said that of the 5,000 trucking companies Pilot works with, 250 had some type of adjustment made. Roughly 400 companies were on a manually calculated rebate program, Haslam said.
The two main goals for Pilot now, he said, are to repay any money owed to trucking companies — with interest — and then work to regain the trust of trucking companies and the industry, Haslam said.
He also encouraged fleets to work directly with Pilot in seeking repayment owed, instead of filing a lawsuit. “You’ll get 100 percent of your dollars and you’ll get them quickly,” Haslam said, adding the company will have all money repaid by July.
A Scopelitis representative prior to Haslam’s speech said the law firm — which represents about 5,000 trucking companies, too — is recommending to its clients to take a wait-and-see approach to filing lawsuits, and that suing may not be the best route. In a letter to its members earlier this month, ATA also did not recommend litigation as, necessarily, the appropriate course of action, but instead said it would monitor the situation to determine the best course for ATA members.
