TL;DR: The HVAC price-fixing lawsuit is unresolved. As of October 20, 2026, the manufacturers’ motion to dismiss is pending, with no ruling, settlement, class certification, or claim form. Keep equipment records from January 2020 forward and give customers a neutral answer about disputed price increases.
The lawsuit alleges a coordinated increase in HVAC prices
A group of homeowners, contractors, and other purchasers alleges that major HVAC manufacturers conspired to fix, raise, maintain, or stabilize equipment prices beginning in January 2020. The case is In re HVAC Equipment Antitrust Litigation, No. 2:26-cv-10949, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Judge Susan K. DeClercq is assigned to it.
The first complaint was filed on March 20, 2026, by a Michigan consumer. Contractor complaints followed in April and May. The reported contractor plaintiffs include Richard Isom of Air Tech Services in Florida, Precision Plumbing, Electric, Heating & Cooling in North Dakota, Safford’s Heating, Cooling and Refrigeration in New York, Reliable AC Services in Florida, and Husky Heating & Cooling.
The cases were consolidated. On July 10, plaintiffs filed three amended complaints covering direct purchasers, commercial indirect purchasers, and end-user indirect purchasers.
On October 9, the manufacturers filed a joint motion to dismiss all three complaints. As of October 20, the motion to dismiss is still pending. No court has ruled on the merits. There has been no class certification, settlement, finding of wrongdoing, or claim form.
The defendants include the corporate families of Carrier, Trane Technologies, Lennox, Rheem, Daikin, Bosch, and AAON. The complaints say these companies control more than 90% of the U.S. HVAC equipment market, according to ACHR News.
Plaintiffs point to price increases and industry communication
The plaintiffs’ legal claim is under Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. They say the manufacturers coordinated through several channels.
The complaints describe AHRI statistical programs as a private exchange for nonpublic market data. Members contribute confidential information and receive reports and dashboards covering market performance, inventories, and shipments. The complaints also point to public price increase announcements made weeks before the increases took effect, earnings calls, investor conferences, industry meetings, and third-party pricing services named in the amended complaints as Pricefx and Convergence Data.
AHRI and ACHR News are described in the complaints as channels for the alleged coordination. Neither is a defendant. AHRI also publishes aggregated shipment information. Our explanation of AHRI’s shipment data covers what that published information contains.
The Isom complaint says HVAC equipment prices rose about 53.5% from January 2020 to the filing. It compares that with a 29.7% increase in the Consumer Price Index over the same period. The complaint also says a preliminary regression analysis estimated an overcharge of about 8% above competitive levels.
The Isom complaint argues that advance announcements would make little sense if competitors were not expected to follow. It states, “A manufacturer that broadcasts a 9% increase three weeks before it takes effect risks losing customers…”
Those are allegations from the complaints. They have not been proven.
The manufacturers say parallel increases do not prove an agreement
The manufacturers’ joint motion argues that none of the complaints alleges direct communication showing that two or more defendants agreed to fix HVAC equipment prices. The motion says, “After stripping away the innuendo, what remains is the well-documented trend of rising prices spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental regulations, and tariffs.”
The manufacturers say each company responded independently to real cost increases. They point to pandemic supply chain disruption, tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper, the DOE SEER2 efficiency standards that took effect in 2023, and the AIM Act transition to lower-GWP refrigerants such as R-454B. The R-454B transition has already created work and cost questions for contractors.
The motion says AHRI distributes aggregated, non-price information rather than individual confidential pricing. It states, “This kind of generalized and aggregated information sharing … does not render an alleged price-fixing conspiracy plausible.”
Under U.S. antitrust law, parallel price increases alone are not illegal. Plaintiffs must plausibly allege an actual agreement. That is the legal line at issue in the motion to dismiss.
Lennox CEO Alok Maskara said on the company’s April 30 earnings call that the lawsuit contains only the plaintiff’s allegation and that there has been no finding of wrongdoing. He said Lennox disputes the accuracy of the allegation and will defend itself through proper legal channels.
The equipment share of an install does not answer the lawsuit
Lennox CEO Maskara said equipment, parts, and supplies account for 30% to 40% of total installation cost. He also said mid-single-digit price increases were necessary to offset rising costs.
That figure does give you a practical way to explain a replacement quote. Equipment is one part of the job. Labor, overhead, permits, and the rest remain part of the shop’s price.
In shop call notes this fall, the first question on many replacement calls has been a comparison: why is this so much more than the quote my neighbor got a couple of years ago. The office often has no one sentence ready. The call ends with, let me have someone call you back.
That answer needs to change. Tell the homeowner that equipment costs rose, the reasons are disputed in court, and the quote reflects what the equipment costs the shop today. Do not tell the customer the manufacturers were caught. Do not repeat the manufacturers’ explanation as settled fact either. Your own flat rate versus time and materials policy can explain how the rest of the job is priced.
A small shop has no claim to file this season
There is no claim form, settlement, or filing deadline. Anyone contacting your shop about claiming a share of an HVAC price-fixing settlement is early at best.
Keep equipment invoices, distributor statements, and serial numbers from January 2020 forward. A shop that buys directly from a manufacturer would be on the direct purchaser side. A shop buying through a distributor, as most small residential shops do, would be on the commercial indirect purchaser side. Homeowners are end-user indirect purchasers.
Class actions that pay out years later generally require proof of purchase. Most shops already keep these records for warranty registration. Do not purge them.
The immediate pricing risk is different. Stale open quotes can become margin losses when equipment costs change. Review old replacement quotes and your process for price letters before treating any lawsuit outcome as a pricing plan. The guidance on manufacturer price letters and open quotes addresses that problem directly.
Dial 72 answers a shop’s calls 24/7. It never quotes a price over the phone. It books the visit, flags a replacement inquiry as a high-value lead, and texts the shop a summary that includes what the caller asked about price. Give Dial 72 your approved one sentence about equipment costs, so the answer stays consistent and the price question reaches the owner in the text summary instead of becoming an argument at the door.
Watch for the ruling on the motion to dismiss. If it is granted, the cases may end or be re-pleaded. If it is denied, they move into discovery and could take years. For this season, keep the records, review stale quotes, and train the office to use the same neutral sentence on every replacement call.
