Corpay, the Atlanta-based corporate payments company formerly known as FleetCor Technologies, and CEO Ronald Clarke have agreed to pay the FTC $100 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of charging customers hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden and unwarranted fees. Corpay is not admitting any wrongdoing as part of the deal.
The settlement, announced Thursday, resolves an administrative proceeding tied to a legal battle that stretches back to 2019, when the FTC first sued the company. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the FTC said the settlement money will compensate Corpay customers, most of whom are small businesses. Per the Federal Trade Commission, Corpay and CEO Ronald Clarke agreed to pay the FTC $100 million, with the settlement money going into a customer redress fund.
The dollar figure lands well short of the scale of harm the FTC alleged. In court filings connected to the original 2019 lawsuit, the agency estimated that the company's deceptive fee practices inflicted more than $500 million in total financial harm on customers, including roughly $213 million from unfair late fees and $320 million from unauthorized add-on charges, according to Courthouse News.
How Corpay Allegedly Buried the Charges
The FTC's case centered on tactics that made fees difficult for customers to spot. Federal filings and court records established that FleetCor concealed fees by delaying their assessment until several billing cycles after account setup, leaving them off regular invoices, and obscuring fee terms, the FTC's press release states. Corpay charged late fees to customers who had paid on time or who the company itself had prevented from paying on time, per the AJC's reporting, and separately misrepresented the benefits of its fuel cards to fleet customers.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg granted summary judgment against the company on all counts in August 2022 and followed with a June 2023 permanent injunction requiring Corpay to obtain express, informed consent before charging any fee and barring disclosures buried behind hyperlinks, according to court records cited by VitalLaw. Corpay challenged those injunction terms as overly burdensome before losing its appeal.
Appeals Court Sided With the FTC, Mostly
Corpay lost its bid to overturn the federal judge's ruling when a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed summary judgment against the company on all five counts of FTC Act violations on January 6, 2026, leaving the permanent injunction intact. The court did vacate an individual injunction against Clarke on one count, finding a lack of proof regarding his knowledge of specific fuel-only advertisements, Courthouse News reported. The appeals panel described the evidence against Corpay as overwhelming.
Corpay has more than 800,000 business clients, many of them small and medium-sized businesses.
A Company Worth Billions, a CEO Worth More
Corpay, which rebranded from FleetCor Technologies in 2024, carried a market capitalization above $26 billion as of September 2026 and generated $4.0 billion in 2024 revenue, according to Barchart. The company has projected fiscal-year 2026 revenue of around $5.3 billion, the AJC reported, and operates across vehicle payments, cross-border transactions and corporate expense management.
Clarke, who has led Corpay since 2000, is a billionaire. He received total compensation of $28.05 million in 2024, a 951% jump from his 2023 earnings, according to Fast Company. Hoodline reported in July that Clarke sold his Jupiter mansion for $16.26 million.
A Divided Commission Approves the Deal
The FTC's vote to approve the settlement passed with a single commissioner voting in favor and one recused, reflecting a temporary commission structure with three vacant seats and only two active commissioners at the time, according to Payments Dive. Both active commissioners were Republicans, the outlet noted. Corpay said it will continue cooperating with the FTC as the matter is finalized, the AJC reported.
The resolution addresses the FTC's allegations of hidden add-on charges. It remains an open question how far the $100 million redress fund will go toward compensating small business customers given that alleged damages topped $500 million, and how Corpay's compliance with Judge Totenberg's 2023 injunction will reshape its vehicle payments business going forward.
