Pilot Flying J: Payback To Cheated Trucking Companies Nearly Complete

The Cleveland press has been covering troubles at Pilot Flying J since Jimmy Haslam recently bought the Browns. Credit: John Reid III / Cleveland Browns

Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam said – again – he’s been “embarrassed” and “humbled” by an apparent fuel rebate fraud scheme. Nearly six months into a federal investigation, he says the country’s largest truck stop chain is bouncing back.

Pilot will have repaid all the trucking companies it cheated out of diesel rebates in the next few months, according to Jimmy Haslam. The older brother of Tennessee’s governor and owner of the Cleveland Browns says Pilot is also paying interest.

“We’ve actually expanded what we said we would do – fairly dramatically in several different cases – all in the spirit of doing the right thing and making things right with the trucking companies,” Haslam said Monday.

Knoxville TV station WBIR webcast the 12-minute statement, in which Jimmy Haslam took no questions.

He said as many as 75 outside auditors have been working to rectify accounts of those who were shortchanged. According to court documents, the company has agreed to pay at least $40 million in withheld rebates. However, Haslam called it a “fractional” amount compared to Pilot’s annual revenues, estimated at $30 billion.