REV Group Lawsuit: Fire Truck Price-Fixing Claims and Cases

The REV Group lawsuit is a federal antitrust action alleging that REV Group, Inc., together with Oshkosh Corporation, Rosenbauer America, the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers’ Association, and private equity firm American Industrial Partners, ran a years-long cartel that roughly doubled fire truck prices and stretched delivery times from about 18 months to more than four years. The cases have been consolidated as In re: Fire Apparatus Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 3179, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin before Judge William C. Griesbach.{¹} The litigation is in its early pretrial phase; no motions to dismiss have been filed and no settlement discussions have been publicly reported.{²}

REV Group alone captures roughly one-third of U.S. fire truck sales, generating about $1 billion in annual revenue from that segment. Together with Oshkosh (through Pierce Manufacturing) and Rosenbauer, it sits inside a group of three companies that plaintiffs say control 70 to 80 percent of a roughly $3 billion annual market.{³}{⁴}

What REV Group Is Accused of Doing

The complaints allege a conspiracy dating to at least January 2016 to inflate prices and restrict supply. The claims cluster around a trade association, deliberate capacity cuts, and a pricing practice that shifted cost risk onto buyers after contracts were signed.

Sharing Prices Through a Trade Group

Central to the theory is the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers’ Association, a not-for-profit trade group with 55 manufacturer members as of May 2025. Plaintiffs allege FAMA served as a conduit through which competitors exchanged confidential pricing, production capacity, demand, and sales strategy data. At FAMA’s spring and fall meetings, manufacturers allegedly participated in “purchasing roundtables” and members-only discussion groups described in the complaints as a “give-to-get” data-sharing scheme, while FAMA distributed quarterly statistical reports that plaintiffs say let members monitor each other’s compliance and coordinate increases.{} The complaints add that manufacturer executives warned “negative selling,” meaning undercutting competitors on price, would not be tolerated.{⁵}

Cutting Capacity While Demand Surged

Rather than expanding to meet demand, REV Group reduced its manufacturing capacity by roughly one-third, according to Senators Jim Banks and Elizabeth Warren.{³} In September 2021, REV Group announced closures of KME Fire Apparatus plants in Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania, and Roanoke, Virginia, eliminating 388 jobs at the Pennsylvania facility alone. The company said production would be “transitioned to other REV Fire Group plants,” but the shutdowns coincided with rising demand and lengthening backlogs.{⁶} As of December 2024, REV Group reported a $4.2 billion backlog on fire and emergency vehicle orders.{}

“Floating” Prices After the Order

The litigation describes a practice called “floating prices,” in which manufacturers raised the purchase price after an order was placed, sometimes threatening non-delivery if the buyer refused to pay more. Plaintiffs say the practice shifted cost risk entirely onto fire departments that had often budgeted years earlier.{³}

The dollar impact is documented in several complaints. Pumper trucks that ran around $500,000 in the mid-2010s now cost about $1 million; ladder trucks moved from roughly $900,000 to $2 million.{⁷} IAFF General President Edward Kelly told the Senate in September 2025 that a fire engine costing $589,000 in 2020 had risen to nearly $1.1 million by 2025.{⁸} Baltimore paid $677,000 per Pierce pumper in 2023 and about $892,000 per unit a year later; Providence documented a 60 percent increase in fire truck costs between 2020 and 2024.{⁹}{¹⁰}

How REV Group Was Built

Plaintiffs treat REV Group’s corporate history as part of the alleged scheme, not background to it. Beginning in 2006, private equity firm American Industrial Partners started acquiring independent fire equipment manufacturers and folding them into a single entity. AIP describes itself as an “operationally oriented” firm that creates value through industry consolidation.{⁷}

REV Group now manufactures fire trucks under brands including E-ONE, KME (Kovatch Mobile Equipment), Ferrara Fire Apparatus, Spartan Emergency Response, Smeal Fire Apparatus, and Ladder Tower Company.{⁷} After acquiring KME in the mid-2010s, REV Group’s U.S. market share jumped from 4.6 percent to 22.6 percent, and continued climbing to roughly 33 percent.{³} AIP sold a significant portion of its REV Group stock in March 2024 for $127.6 million but retains a beneficial interest through a holding company, AIP/CHC Holdings, LLC.{} Senators Warren and Banks, who opened a bipartisan investigation in April 2025, characterized the pattern as a “serial roll-up” designed to leverage monopoly power while potentially evading antitrust scrutiny.{¹¹}

Who Is Suing and Where the Cases Stand

The first class action was filed on behalf of the City of Revere, Massachusetts, on November 19, 2025, in the District of Massachusetts.{¹²} The City of Arcadia, California, followed on December 22, 2025, seeking to represent all indirect purchasers of fire trucks from January 2016 onward.{⁷} A wave of major municipal filings came in early 2026:

Los Angeles County sued REV Group, Oshkosh, Boise Mobile Equipment, and AIP on February 12, 2026, alleging an “unlawful oligopoly” built through nearly a dozen acquisitions. The suit was brought under the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, and California Cartwright Act, and seeks treble damages and an order unwinding the anticompetitive mergers.{}¹³
Milwaukee sued Oshkosh, REV Group, Rosenbauer, and FAMA on February 19, 2026, alleging the defendants acted as a “cartel,” created “false scarcity,” and used “floating prices” to raise costs after contracts were signed.{}⁴
Baltimore filed on June 2, 2026, targeting REV Group, Oshkosh, and AIP, seeking treble damages and court-ordered divestitures. Baltimore did not name Rosenbauer.{}⁹
Providence filed on June 15, 2026, naming Oshkosh, Terex, and FAMA.{}¹⁰

Other plaintiffs across the filings include Philadelphia, Ann Arbor, La Crosse, Onalaska, and Chelsea, along with boroughs, fire districts, and private fire companies.{¹}

On April 3, 2026, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the cases as MDL No. 3179 in the Eastern District of Wisconsin before Judge Griesbach, rejecting the defendants’ request to send the litigation to the Northern District of Illinois.{¹}{¹⁴} The MDL initially encompassed twelve actions and seven potential tag-along cases.{¹⁵}

The MDL runs on two parallel tracks. The direct purchaser class is led by the Saveri Law Firm, confirmed as interim co-lead counsel on May 13, 2026.{¹⁶} The indirect purchaser class is led by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, Crueger Dickinson, and Gustafson Gluek, appointed by Judge Griesbach on June 9, 2026.{¹²} A consolidated amended complaint was filed on March 23, 2026.

State enforcement is also in play. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation on February 13, 2026, issuing Civil Investigative Demands to REV Group, Oshkosh, and Rosenbauer focused on price hikes, consolidation, and “suspicious plant closures during peak demand.”{¹⁷} California has filed its own state action, People of the State of California v. REV Group, Inc. (Case No. 26-01468), in the Central District of California, and has objected to being folded into the MDL.{¹}

How REV Group Has Responded

REV Group and Oshkosh have publicly denied wrongdoing and called the lawsuits “meritless,” saying they will fight the claims in court.{¹⁸} Rosenbauer America said it “strongly disagrees with the suit’s claims.”{¹⁴}

The manufacturers attribute rising prices and delivery delays to post-pandemic labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, inflation, and a surge in demand fueled by federal stimulus programs such as the CARES Act and Inflation Reduction Act.{¹⁴} Responding to an April 3, 2025 letter from Senators Josh Hawley and Andy Kim, REV Group cited “inflationary pressures, supply chain and labor constraints” and an “unprecedented increase in demand,” and said it had increased production throughput by nearly 30 percent over two years.{¹⁹}

Plaintiffs argue the defendants’ own statements to investors cut against the supply-chain defense. Complaints cite a REV Group shareholders’ call in which the CFO described “strong backlogs” as giving the company “visibility and opportunity to drive significant shareholder value,” and executives said their backlog had “tripled, growing by over $1 billion” to “an all-time high.”{¹³}

What This Means for Fire Departments

Delivery wait times have moved from an average of about 18 months before the pandemic to two to four years, with some departments quoted four and a half years. Departments are keeping aging equipment in frontline service, buying used apparatus, or pulling reserve units into regular rotation.{²⁰}

IAFF General President Edward Kelly, testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Disaster Management on September 10, 2025, called the situation a “clear and present danger” to public safety. He pointed to a Chicago fire in which a ladder truck’s aerial device failed during a rescue, and noted that during the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires more than half of the LA Fire Department’s trucks were out of service. “Departments are waiting years and paying double for essential equipment,” Kelly said. “That’s unacceptable, and it’s putting lives at risk.”{⁸}

Municipalities and fire districts that purchased fire apparatus from any of the defendants since January 2016 are within the class period defined by the pending complaints.{⁷} Texas municipalities that experienced excessive price hikes or delivery delays can report them to the Texas Attorney General’s Antitrust Division.{¹⁷}

1
U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. MDL No. 3179 Transfer Order
2
CourtListener. In Re Fire Apparatus Antitrust Litigation, Docket
3
U.S. Senate. Sens. Banks, Warren Probe Harms of Private Equity in Fire Truck Manufacturing
4
Courthouse News Service. Milwaukee Names Nation’s Largest Fire Truck Makers in Antitrust Suit
5
Courthouse News Service. City of Milwaukee v. Fire Truck Manufacturers, Complaint
6
Lehigh Valley Live. 388 Jobs Affected in Carbon County Firetruck Plant Closure
7
CPM Legal. City of Arcadia v. American Industrial Partners, Complaint
8
U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Testimony of IAFF General President Edward Kelly
9
The Daily Record. Fire Truck Antitrust Baltimore
10
City of Providence. Mayor Smiley Announces Federal Antitrust Lawsuit Against Major Fire Truck Manufacturers
11
U.S. Senate. Sens. Warren, Banks Open Bipartisan Investigation Into Harms of Private Equity in Fire Truck Manufacturing
12
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. Firetruck Pricing Antitrust
13
Los Angeles County Counsel. LA County Brings Antitrust Suit Against Fire Truck Companies
14
Wisconsin Public Radio. Antitrust Suits Fire Truck Manufacturers Centralized Wisconsin Federal Court
15
FindLaw. In Re Fire Apparatus Antitrust Litigation, Transfer Order
16
Saveri Law Firm. Firetruck Manufacturing Antitrust Litigation
17
Office of the Texas Attorney General. Attorney General Ken Paxton Investigates Firetruck Manufacturers
18
Courthouse News Service. LA County Accuses Fire Engine Makers of Shrinking Market
19
FireRescue1. Senators Push Apparatus Manufacturers for Answers on Costs, Delayed Deliveries
20
International Association of Fire Fighters. What to Know About the Fire Truck Crisis