On June 22, 2026, California residents filed a federal class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California against Calibrate and 14 major gas station chains, alleging that the companies used AI-based pricing software to adjust and inflate fuel prices.
The lawsuit accuses Marathon Petroleum, Circle K, BP, 7-Eleven, Walmart and Albertsons of violating California antitrust law and Assembly Bill 325, which prohibits the use of pricing software to restrict trade.
Plaintiffs describe Kalibrate as “the central nervous system of a conspiracy to eliminate retail price competition among gas stations.” The complaint says Kalibrate helps “adjust high prices” and even prevents users from setting lower gas prices than competitors, saying doing so would cause a “downward spiral.”
The complaint lists “recovery” tools that will help “nearly every gas station in the area dramatically increase prices at the same time.”
The lawsuit estimates that the average overage charge per gallon sold at Kalibrate stations ranges from about 6 cents to as much as 30 cents. Considering the state uses about 13.4 billion gallons of gasoline a year, “an extra cent per gallon” costs motorists $134 million a year, the lawsuit says.
ARCO (Marathon Petroleum), which has a network of more than 1,000 gas stations in California, has operated Kalibrate fuel service since at least 2020.
Concerns about pricing through algorithms led California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign Assembly Bill 325 the previous year. The bill would subject state antitrust laws to pricing algorithms and set the path for a lawsuit filed this week.
Kalibrate is based in Manchester, UK and operates in over 70 countries around the world. Kalibrate did not respond to requests for comment on this issue. This is the first legal challenge to a fuel pricing algorithm in the United States.
