While Amazon’s “Prime Day” resulted in potentially $1 billion in sales, the online retailer has to fulfill millions of orders. This requires work on behalf of fulfillment centers and trucking companies across the country to deliver all of the different forms of merchandise purchased online. Indeed, the notion of using drones to deliver short distance deliveries is trendy, but a large bulk of the merchandise still arrives from manufacturers to fulfillment centers on a truck.
Against this backdrop, the latest contract dispute between motor carriers and the online retail giant is quite compelling. Central Freight Lines has accused Amazon of failing to honor its contract with the trucking company. According to a lawsuit filed in federal court, Central Freight claims that it is owed $2.4 million in past due payments and nearly $1 million in services that were supposed to be awarded under the contract.
Specifically, Central Freight claims that Amazon used its considerable economic weight to “wrongfully and unilaterally” change contract terms without due compensation.
It is not uncommon for carriers and manufacturers to have disputes over contractual terms, so it is important to have a skilled attorney available to carefully interpret disputed terms and to help bring perspective to resolve them before litigation is necessary. Many small businesses have to make difficult decisions about how to address these types of disputes without losing money in litigation, and an experienced business law attorney can help a business make informed decisions.
In the meantime, Amazon has not commented about the lawsuit.
