BP, Walmart, 7-Eleven sued for AI-fueled gas pricing in California

A group of California drivers has taken legal action against six of the nation’s largest fuel retailers, alleging that an artificial-intelligence pricing tool was used to fix gasoline prices and keep them artificially high. The lawsuit, filed on June 22, 2026, in federal court in Sacramento, names BP, Circle K, Marathon Petroleum, 7-Eleven, Walmart, and Albertsons as defendants.

The complaint claims these chains all fed data into the same algorithmic pricing software, supplied by a company called Kalibrate. According to the plaintiffs, this software analyzes competitors’ prices and recommends what each station should charge. The drivers argue this practice effectively created a coordination scheme that raised prices in lockstep, rather than allowing normal market competition to set them.

The financial impact alleged is significant. In areas where a high percentage of stations used the tool, the plaintiffs say gasoline prices rose by roughly 30 cents per gallon compared to what competitive pricing would have produced. The six companies operate more than 1,700 filling stations across California, giving any pricing changes a broad reach, as Bloomberg first reported.

The defendants include major-brand forecourts, convenience chains, and supermarket fuel stations that together account for a large share of where Californians buy petrol. That widespread market presence, the plaintiffs argue, is why the alleged price effect was felt so broadly.

The suit relies on two pieces of California law. The first is the Cartwright Act, the state’s main antitrust statute, which prohibits agreements that restrain trade. The second is newer: Assembly Bill 325, which took effect earlier this year and was written specifically to address algorithmic pricing. The plaintiffs contend that feeding competitors’ data into a shared tool is exactly the kind of behavior the new law was designed to catch, even if no executives ever met in person to agree on a price.

That theory is central to a broader legal debate now unfolding across several U. S. markets, from rental housing to hotel rooms. The question is whether software that quietly aligns the decisions of competitors can violate antitrust rules without the human handshake those rules were originally meant to police. Regulators have grown increasingly wary as AI moves deeper into commerce, and the California case puts a familiar product, petrol, at the center of the issue.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages. The filing does not name a dollar figure for the alleged harm, leaving that to be argued as the case proceeds. The defendants have not yet responded in court, and the allegations remain unproven. Kalibrate is described in the complaint as the supplier of the pricing tool rather than as a defendant, and the case is framed as a proposed class action on behalf of drivers who bought fuel at the named stations.

California has long been one of the most expensive places in the U. S. to fill a tank, a fact usually attributed to state taxes, environmental regulations, and a relatively isolated network of refineries. The lawsuit adds a software layer to that explanation, arguing that some of the price gap reflects coordinated pricing rather than the usual structural costs.

For now, the practical questions sit with the court. The companies will need to file responses, and the plaintiffs must show that a shared tool produced something the law treats as coordination, rather than independent firms reaching similar conclusions from similar data. How a judge in Sacramento draws that line could shape how far the new statute reaches, well beyond the forecourt.