BFI Waste Services LLC and affiliated companies face a $40 million proposed class action settlement over how they raised prices for commercial and industrial waste hauling and recycling customers. In this industry, many customers sign auto‑renewing service contracts that include “rate adjustment” clauses—allowing the hauler to increase prices for defined reasons like higher disposal or transportation costs, changes in law, or inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The lawsuit centers on “open‑market” customers in multiple states who allegedly paid increases during specified periods (as early as 2017 in some states through Sept. 30, 2025) that exceeded what certain contract formulas permitted—described here as more than a combined total of 6% for cost increases plus the applicable CPI increase. The case was filed because plaintiffs allege BFI applied price hikes beyond those contractual limits, meaning customers may have been charged more than they agreed to in writing, even if the contracts allowed some unilateral adjustments. BFI denies wrongdoing but agreed to settle to avoid the cost and risk of litigation; if approved, eligible businesses can claim payments (generally $100 with an account-number claim or roughly $200–$250 with more detailed contract documentation, subject to proration if claims exceed the net fund). Beyond potential compensation, the settlement underscores how closely courts and customers scrutinize contract-based pricing mechanisms—especially in essential, recurring services where switching providers can be disruptive and where small percentage increases can compound across years of invoices. More broadly, disputes like this reflect recurring tensions in waste and recycling markets: haulers face volatile landfill tipping fees, fuel and labor costs, contamination rules that affect recycling economics, and local permitting or disposal constraints, while customers expect rate changes to track the narrow triggers spelled out in their contracts. The regulatory backdrop is a patchwork—pricing is often governed more by contract law and state consumer/unfair-practices statutes than by direct rate regulation, except in franchise or municipal arrangements (which this settlement explicitly excludes). Similar class cases in other service sectors with auto‑renewing contracts and escalation clauses—like telecommunications, alarms, and utilities-adjacent services—often turn on the same core question: whether “cost-based” or “index-based” increases were calculated and disclosed in the way the contract promised.