It did not take long on the C.H.
Robinson second quarter earnings call with analysts late Wednesday for the subject to switch away from a strong financial performance in the quarter to the fallout from its more than $600 million nuclear verdict handed down in a Texas courtroom last week
While there might have been some speculation that CEO Dave Bozeman and other members of the management team might have cited “ongoing litigation” as a reason to not discuss the Dallas County case of Lipe vs. Lupus Superior, with C.H. Robinson also as a defendant, Bozeman addressed it in his opening remarks, and numerous questions from analysts were all answered with the same reply: our behavior was proper and we’re confident this verdict will not stand.
That message on Lipe vs. Lupus Superior ultimately became likely the most-discussed topic of the phone call, though Michael Castagnetto, the president of North American Surface Transportation, was able to make his core point at least twice about the company’s core brokerage operations: it has now been 13 quarters where volume growth at C.H. Robinson outstripped the benchmark volume numbers published by Cass Information Systems.