A Rochester, N.Y., company, that threatened legal action in a March letter to members of the Technology & Maintenance Council, has filed suit in an attempt to stop the TMC’s FleetPortal service.
The company operates a similar service under the trade name FleetCross.
In a press release issued Friday, Service Professionals Inc. of Rochester, N.Y., said it has filed an antitrust lawsuit in Federal District Court in Rochester against the American Trucking Associations Inc., its Technology and Maintenance Council and against Continental Data Graphics, the technology company that created FleetPortal.
FleetPortal launched earlier this year provides users a single source for truck parts and repair documentation.
The March letter to TMC members came from Service Professionals founder Jack Schickler.
“As a member of TMC, I have long been concerned about the propriety of TMC’s entering into the commercial venture known as TMC FleetPortal,” Schickler wrote. Schickler said he had consulted with attorneys and claimed that FleetPortal violates the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Carl Kirk, vice president of ATA Councils and executive director of the TMC, said at the time that Schickler’s statements had been reviewed and considered and that the FleetPortal project would go forward.
According to their Friday press release, “Service Professionals Inc. seeks compensatory and punitive damages and an injunction against ATA and Continental Data Graphics arising out of their anti-competitive and exclusionary activities designed to foreclose Service Professionals Inc. from the market and intended to monopolize and restrain trade in the market for the sale of truck repair and parts reference systems.”
Service Professionals Inc. operates a web site at www.fleetcross.com. According to the web site, the company provides “custom databases, software and networks for parts and service referencing of vehicles and equipment” including web-based network services VMRS (Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standards) coding of parts and labor data.
According to the press release, the FleetCross system has been in business for five years.