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sAN FRANCISCO -- Nearly two dozen gas station owners in California on Tuesday sued Shell Oil Co., Chevron Corp. and Saudi Refining Inc., claiming the companies conspired to fix prices for 23,000 franchise owners nationwide.
The case filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, which is seeking class-action status, is similar to one California station owners filed in 2004. The U.S. Supreme Court tossed out that suit last year, but new plaintiffs hope the court will consider a slightly different argument.
Like the previous case, the new plaintiffs say chairmen of the three oil companies met privately nearly every month starting in March 1996 for the "purpose of forming and organizing a combination."
The lawsuit alleges executives destroyed documents from the meetings, and a now-defunct joint venture violated U.S. antitrust laws and caused artificially high wholesale gas prices in nearly every state from 1999 to 2001.http://www.ktvu.com/news/13944037/detail.html
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