In a press conference given shortly after the FBI raid on Pilot Flying J headquarters two weeks ago, CEO Jimmy Haslam laid out a road map for how he and his company would go about making things right. One of the items on the list was to hire an “external auditor… whose credibility is beyond reproach.” The goal was to find out if there had been any wrongdoing on the part of his company and to find out exactly how much money was owed to whom.
Even though federal agents would be doing investigations of their own, the fact that Pilot Flying J leadership seemed willing to open their books and make all of their files available to another independent source seemed like a good sign.
The board for PFJ has announced that their external auditor will be a lawyer from Steptoe & Johnson, a powerhouse international law firm for whom representing clients against government agencies is a specialty. The law firm employs over 500 lawyers around the world with offices in Beijing, Brussels, Century City, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C.. They no doubt have the ability to bring their significant resources and expertise to bear, but will anything they find ever see the light of day?
In addition to appointing the external auditor, the board also announced that any findings would be reported to Brad Martin, the retired chairman and CEO of Saks Inc. They said that Martin would be heading his own special committee who would work with the team at Steptoe & Johnson and “receive [their] eventual report.”
The problem is that Martin is actually a current Pilot Flying J board member and the friend and former employer of Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam who is the brother of Jimmy Haslam, the former president of Pilot, and a major shareholder.
So PFJ is hiring an external auditor with “credibility beyond reproach,” but what the general public ends up seeing after the PFJ board is done with their report may be another story altogether.
Considering the accusations that appear to implicate PFJ executives in the alleged rebate fraud scandal, can we really trust a board member with connections to the Haslam family to release the full report if it ends up implicating Jimmy Haslam?
Next Story: Nation’s Largest Inspection Blitz On The Horizon
Source: landline
Nope.
Beyond reproach har har har just to funny from the scum bag who said f…them early and f…them often. Ya right and tell me when Elvis gets there.
That line was from Vice President of Sales, John Freeman, not the CEO. Get your facts straight…
You probably are right about who said that line — I don’t know, However, there is no doubt that the leader sets the tone for an organization. At every place I have ever worked, if the head of the organization is a stand-up person, statements like that would not happen, and would not be tolerated. If the leader is a scumbag, you hear scumbag talk from the underlings.What I am saying is, Haslam hired the guy. and worked with him. He knew.
There goes driver bonuses!! Thanks Pilot Flying J. Go TA
So…does this mean that one day we can expect to pull in and get fuel without having to wait an hour or more? Or for companies that use a fuel “optimizer” program, we won’t have to drive 100+ unpaid miles out of route for Pilot fuel?
Sounds like a weak attempt by PFJ to try to avoid criminal prosecution by “correcting” the problems themselves. Nice how they found an “impartial” party to conduct the audit, with all the close family and company ties. Those guilty of the fraud, and those that knew about it need to go to prison. They defrauded companies of millions of dollars.
Oh yeah, I guess I should say “allegedly” even though the feds have audio recordings of the PFJ employees discussing the fraud.
As a company driver, I have no choice but to fuel at Pilots and Flying J when given my trips fuel stops. But I will never spend a dime of my own money at one again, and I urge all drivers to stop giving them your money also.
What about the owner operators who bought their fuel?
The carrier I just left had the J discounts and I got everything I was supposed to, believe it or not. Of course it depended on location but the cuts were anywhere from 5 cents to 35 cents.
Where I’m leased now all we’re supposed to get from PFJ is 3 points/gallon on the card….. and so far we haven’t got more then 1 point per gallon. TA/Petro gives us as much as 60 cents (last week in Barstow of all places) per gallon. Take a wild guess were I’m fueling nowadays….
lol Why don’t they let him do all the checking and let him make a report that everything is fine and that it was just a Computer error and everything is fine now and all parties involved now understand what happened and have all moved on.From what I am seeing it don’t look or sound like a very fair system doing all the checks and balances to make the report but in today’s times that’s how we see it work (shameful )
well for the most part I only fuel at pilot. my company pays for it….it should work out. as for buying products in their stores…that’s another thing. if I don’t have freebee points on my card , I don’t spend a cent. they rip us off with their (indian reservation). pricing. I hate getting ripped off. so I wait to get less ripped off at walmart. what comes around goes around….overprice and rip off your customers …..hmmm
they must not be to worrird. the corporate jet was out in utah and thevpredident was wining and dining KST, kelles transport. Whatca good use ofvrebate funds. I would like to see all csrties boycott pilot for c a week. the yop down they all new whatcwas going on.