Price-Fixing Case Against Ace, Epicor, Expands to Include 7 of Hardware's Biggest Companies

By Craig Webb

A class action complaint alleging price- and market-fixing by Ace Hardware Corp., its units, and Epicor was expanded Sept. 2 to include seven of the nation's biggest hardware chains.

The Amended Complaint now includes as defendants:

• W.E. Aubuchon Co., parent of Aubuchon Hardware and stores with other names;

• Bellmore Home Center, owner of Costello's Ace Hardware and Rommel's Ace Home Center;

• Bolster Hardware, owner of Potter's Ace Hardware and other stores;

• The Helpful Hardware Co., which owns nearly two dozen Ace stores;

• Niemann Foods' hardware units;

• Whitmore Ace Hardware; and

• The Helpful Group, corporate parent of Elder's Ace Hardware. One particular Elder's unit, tied to Ace Hardware of Chattanooga Inc., also is newly named as a defendant.

Collectively, the added defendants own hundreds of Ace outlets. All have been delivered summons

As before, the 110-page update alleges that "Ace stores have used their cooperative to conspire to raise prices and reduce choice for millions of consumers." Plaintiffs claim that the "staggering amounts of competitively sensitive data regarding prices and sales" in Ace member stores are used "to coordinate local prices and divide local markets," thus boosting profit margins. Ace also limits where and how Ace stores can be located, the complaint says.

"In other words, the Ace cooperative has been cartelized," the plaintiffs allege, turning it "into an organization that facilitates illegal coordination in aid of limiting competition and charging higher prices."

Ace and Epicor have urged U.S. District Judge Sunil R. Harjani of the Northern District of Illinois to dismiss the proposed class-action lawsuit. Separately, defendants said disputes concerning the two purchases at Ace stores that underlie the pre-amended lawsuit are supposed to be settled via arbitration, not in court. This may be one reason why four more people were added as plaintiffs in the amended complaint.

A July 30 videoconference between defendants and plaintiffs failed to produce an agreement. Defendants had until Oct. 2 to reply, and the amended complaint appears to be part of that reply. Defendants must answer by Oct. 30.

The original plaintiff was Sean Twomey of Palos Heights, IL, who is in the case because he purchased products at two Ace stores. The attorneys representing him are from two law firms with a history of winning class action suits and settlements against institutions like Philip Morris and Alphabet's Google Play Store.

The new plaintiffs are William Crim of Crested Butte, CO; Gregory Ernst of St. Louis; Jason Goodin of Mesa, AZ; and Adam Kleekamp of Washington, MO. As with Twomey, they made purchases from local Ace stores and thus claim standing in the case.

In the motion for dismissal, Ace rejected claims that Ace operates a cartel by taking data on sales and prices and telling members the prices they should set in order to gain maximum profit margins. It said services that the Ace co-op provides--among them pricing tools, benchmarking reports, software support, and store-location reviews--are wrongly labeled by the plaintiffs as price-fixing, market allocation, and anticompetitive exchanges of information.

"Antitrust complaints must plead facts that make a conspiracy plausible," the motion for dismissal states, emphasizing the word "plausible. "This one does not."

The complaint does not plausibly suggest a horizontal agreement among competitors, the motion continues. The motion also argues that none of the 5,000+ Ace stores has receive an exclusive territory, and that information sharing "is not inherently anticompetitive and can be procompetitive."

Ace attorneys also stressed that antitrust claims against the co-op lose value when one considers that Ace customers can go to The Home Depot, Lowe's Amazon, Walmart, Menards, or a slew of other competitors. "No plausible antitrust complaint can proceed on the theory that a customer shopping for items like paint, mulch, tools, batteries, grills, and many household items would view Ace (and sometimes Do it Best, a competitor chain) as the only option," it says.

Ace doesn't have any enforcement mechanism or punishment for deviating from its suggested prices, the motion says. And it doesn't require the use of Epicor software.

As for complaints that Ace Hardware Corp. controls where stores are located, the co-op does review applications from prospective Ace stores regarding a specific location, but it also tells the applicant that they won't get an exclusive territory. "The Complaint alleges that Ace Stores cannot relocate without [Ace Hardware Corp.] approval nor sell their store without giving AHC a right of first refusal," the motion says. "It does not address whether these are standard franchise-style quality controls, versus evidence of market division."

The plaintiffs' original complaint--and foundation reason for the request that it become a class action--springs from Sean Twomey's purchase of five items for $48.95 at Palos (IL) Ace Hardware on Nov. 26, 2025, and of two items for $22.47 bought at Duke's Ace Hardware on Dec. 23, 2025.

Ace attorneys noted that Sean Twomey bought those items using an Ace Rewards Account held by his wife, Erica Twomey.

"The Ace Rewards Program Terms and Conditions have a binding arbitration provision that broadly covers all claims' relating to the alleged purchases," Ace attorneys wrote. "Twomey assumed the obligations of the Program Terms when he made his purchases through the Ace Rewards Program. He now asks this Court to resolve antitrust claims concerning allegedly overpriced products. He has chosen the wrong forum. ... Ace respectfully requests that the Court compel Twomey to arbitrate his claims on an individual basis and stay this action pending completion of the arbitration."

The amended complaint notes that new plaintiffs Crim and Ernst are members of the Ace Rewards Program, while Goodin and Kleekamp are not.