By Tom Hals
WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) - A Delaware court ruled in favor of truck stop operator TravelCenters of America LLC (O:TA) on Monday in its lawsuit against the Comdata unit of FleetCor Technologies Inc (O:FLT) over merchant fees it paid to the fuel card provider.
TravelCenters, which operates more than 200 truck stops, sued Comdata Inc in November, alleging the company improperly jacked up the fees it charged for processing sales of fuel using its payment card.
At the center of the spat was a 2011 agreement that set the processing fees and also required TravelCenters to upgrade its technology.
TravelCenters struggled to implement the new systems, and last year Comdata claimed that TravelCenters had failed to live up to its end of the deal. In February, Comdata hiked the processing fees, claiming the prior agreement was no longer in place.
Delaware Chancellor Andre Bouchard ruled that TravelCenters had upheld its end of the 2011 agreement and therefore was entitled to damages equal to the difference between what Comdata began charging on Feb. 1, 2017, and the fee level set in the original agreement.
TravelCenters was seeking damages of $30,715 per day, according to court documents.
FleetCor and TravelCenters did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Shares of TravelCenters closed up 15.4 percent at $3.75 on Nasdaq. Shares of FleetCor ended up 1.2 percent at $146.10 on the New York Stock Exchange.