Baltimore enters antitrust litigation against fire truck manufacturers

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Baltimore filed a lawsuit Tuesday against a set of fire apparatus manufacturers, joining other cities in antitrust litigation in which they allege various firms conspired to fix prices and restrict supply.

The city’s lawsuit targets three companies — REV Group, Oshkosh Corporation and private equity firm American Industrial Partners. The 123-page complaint mirrors lawsuits by Milwaukee, Los Angeles and dozens of other cities alleging that the firms engaged in anticompetitive practices.

The International Association of Firefighters has encouraged the federal government to intervene in what it calls a fire apparatus “crisis” that has caused “exorbitant prices and delivery delays that can take years.” The manufacturing firms have attributed the backlogs to skyrocketing demand for fire apparatuses.

Baltimore’s lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for Maryland but is likely to be merged with other cases in the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Unlike other municipalities that have filed suits, the city did not target Rosenbauer International, an Austrian company that other cities have accused of engaging illicit market dominance.

Through what the city alleges are “illegal schemes,” the defendants “have reaped extraordinary profits on the backs of fire departments, taxpayers, cities, and counties.” It alleges that over the past decade, AIP embarked on a “strategy to consolidate the markets for fire apparatus and chassis manufacturing.”

The private equity firm acquired nearly a dozen brands, rolled them up under REV Group and “began to leverage this dominance to extract profits from the most captive of customers—fire departments and the taxpayers who fund them,” according to the complaint. The firms shut down manufacturing plants, creating massive backlogs of orders but raising profit margins, the lawsuit alleges. Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corporation also “joined in on the consolidation party,” the lawsuit alleges.

A spokesperson for Oshkosh Corporation said the allegations “are without merit.”

“We are defending ourselves in court,” the spokesperson said. “ Oshkosh remains focused on delivering safe, high-quality fire trucks while continuing to reinvest in our U.S. operations to meet record demand.”

Spokespeople for New York-based AIP and Wisconsin-headquartered REV Group did not return requests for comment Wednesday. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s office did not return a request for comment.

As various municipalities litigate against the firms, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said his office is investigating the manufacturers. The state of California has filed a lawsuit against the companies. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office did not immediately say Wednesday whether it would become involved in the litigation.

Baltimore’s lawsuit notes that in 2023, the city paid $677,000 per pumper truck from Pierce, a subsidiary of Oshkosh Corporation. Within the next year, the price had risen to approximately $892,000 per unit.

“The prices that the City paid or contracted to pay for these and other Fire Apparatuses include hundreds of thousands of dollars in anticompetitive overcharges,” the complaint says.

The city is seeking for a judge to order any divestitures necessary to restore competition and “distinct, separate, independent, and viable businesses.” Baltimore also demanded three-times money damages for injuries stemming from antitrust violations.