Class Action Lawsuit Accuses Nordic Energy Services of ‘Price Gouging’ Gas, Electricity Customers

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A proposed class action lawsuit accuses Nordic Energy Services of secretly charging customers excessively high markups for electricity and natural gas.

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The 35-page lawsuit was filed by an Indiana resident who says his contract with Nordic specified that his natural gas bills would be set at a fixed rate for the first three months. After that period, prices would be based on the company’s cost to acquire the plaintiff’s gas supply, plus an additional 25 cents per therm, the complaint shares.

The filing alleges that, in reality, Nordic’s variable supply rates are substantially higher than its actual costs to acquire energy.

“Instead, Nordic’s rates are the result of unbridled price gouging and profiteering,” the suit contends.

The lawsuit compares nearly two years of Nordic billing cycles paid by the plaintiff with publicly available data on market commodity costs for natural gas during that same period. The case claims that even when adding 25 cents per therm, the market gas supply price was “almost always” substantially lower than Nordic’s rates.

According to the Nordic lawsuit, the energy supplier has deceived customers by consistently charging them far more than its contractual pricing terms permit and failing to disclose how its rates are actually calculated.

“No customer would enroll with Nordic if they knew the truth about this practice,” the complaint argues, noting that the company solicits consumers to purchase its services as an alternative to their local utility.

Nordic also states in its customer contracts that its supply prices include “other charges associated with gas delivery,” such as transportation and storage costs, the suit relays. What the energy supplier fails to mention is that it imposes an “outrageously” high markup on these expenses—sometimes as much as 15 times the actual costs it incurred for transportation and storage, the case alleges.

“As a result of Nordic’s breach of contract and deceptive practices, tens of thousands of customers have been, and continue to be, fleeced by Nordic out of tens of millions of dollars in exorbitant charges for electricity and natural gas,” the filing contends. “[The defendant’s] scheme, which often affects society’s most vulnerable citizens, is immoral, unethical, oppressive, and unscrupulous.”

The lawsuit looks to represent all residential and commercial Nordic customers in the United States whose contracts have either a variable commodity component or a transportation and storage component.

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