The investigation into Pilot Flying J’s rebate program and subsequent release of information may have permanently marred the c0mpany’s reputation and destroyed carrier’s trust in the company.
Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam said he was deeply embarrassed after reading the 120-page affidavit.
Yesterday, Haslam released a statement to the public that outlines what his company plans to do in the upcoming months to earn back the trust of trucking community and to pay back the carriers that were shortchanged.
“… If we find an underpayment, we will encourage the affected customer to review our finding, test with their own audit if they like, and if we owe them money, we will write them a check immediately.”
As a first step, Haslam said the company will work to be more transparent. He plans to keep the public informed of the events within the company, though he said because of the ongoing investigation, he cannot answer specific questions.
Haslam announced 5 steps his company is taking to address the issues:
To that end, I’m announcing today five steps that we are taking to address the issues raised by the investigation. I’m going to take them one by one.
- Immediately, we are bringing our field audit team to Knoxville to review all 3,300 contracts with our trucking company customers, not just the relative few implied in the federal affidavit, and to proactively address any miscalculations that we may find.
- Yesterday, we placed on administrative leave several members of our diesel fuel sales team and, on an interim basis, we are restructuring that team pending further investigation to get control of that operation and restore confidence to our customers.
- I have directed that all of our diesel fuel customers be converted to electronic calculation and payment eliminating future risks of any abuse that might be enabled by manual calculation and payment.
- I have asked our outside counsel to help us create and staff a position of Chief Compliance Officer to report to the company’s general counsel to deal with any similar questions or issues that might come up in the future.
- Lastly but very important, our board, in a special meeting yesterday, voted to hire an Independent Special Investigator to oversee and validate all of our internal inquiries related to the federal investigation.