On Jan. 14, 2019, New York Attorney General Letitia James and City Corporation Counsel Zachary W. Carter announced that FedEx Ground would pay $35.3 million to resolve claims it shipped untaxed cigarettes to New Yorkers over a decade. FedEx also agreed to stop most domestic tobacco shipments, implement compliance reforms and retain an independent monitor.
Attorney General Letitia James and City Corporation Counsel Zachary W. Carter announced a $35.3 million settlement today with FedEx Ground Package System, Inc. (“FedEx”) to resolve claims over illegal cigarette deliveries to residents throughout New York City and State made by FedEx over a ten-year period. This settlement resolves three lawsuits against FedEx alleging that it partnered with cigarette trafficking businesses to illegally ship hundreds of thousands of untaxed cigarettes to New Yorkers. In addition to the payment, FedEx will implement internal reforms and hire an independent consultant that will oversee FedEx’s compliance with the law and provide compliance reports to the City and State.
The French Jewish Union for Peace filed a complaint against FedEx’s French subsidiary, alleging it transported aircraft components from the United States through France to Israel that were used to maintain F-35s operating over Gaza. FedEx told AFP it makes no international deliveries of weapons or ammunition; the allegations have not been established.
PARIS (AFP) — American logistics giant FedEx has been targeted in France by a legal complaint alleging “complicity in the crime of genocide” over claims it transported parts for Israeli aircraft involved in bombing Gaza.
Former FedEx district sales manager Jennifer Harris alleged she was fired in retaliation for reporting racial discrimination. An appeals court reversed her $366 million jury award, finding her contract’s filing deadline barred the claims, while also finding evidence supported retaliation and reducing compensatory damages to about $249,000. In December 2024, the parties settled all claims; terms were not disclosed.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday reversed a $366 million verdict against FedEx in a case where a Black district sales manager alleged she was fired in retaliation for accusing her supervisor of racial discrimination.
FedEx Corporate Services Inc. and a former company manager claiming pervasive race-based discrimination and retaliation have settled a case involving one of the largest-ever jury verdicts ever won by a worker suing over racial bias.
FedEx announced agreements projected to provide more than 20 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel through 2027 at five U.S. airports: Newark, JFK, Dallas Fort Worth, Oakland and Miami. The company said deliveries would use 30%–50% blends. It did not disclose suppliers or financial terms.
FedEx has signed a series of agreements to expand its procurement of sustainable aviation fuel across five airports in the United States, the company announced Tuesday. The deals are projected to deliver over 20 million gallons of neat or unblended SAF through 2027.
The EEOC sued FedEx in September 2024, alleging its “100%-healed” policy denied reasonable accommodations to ramp transport drivers with medical restrictions, placing them on unpaid leave or terminating them. The agency says a Minneapolis driver was fired despite being able to work with accommodations. The EEOC seeks compensation and an order to prevent future discrimination; these are allegations.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, since Nov. 29, 2019, FedEx maintained and enforced a 100%-healed policy against ramp transport drivers, who drive a tractor-trailer and operate mechanical equipment to load and unload pallets or containers loaded with freight. When FedEx learned a ramp transport driver had medical restrictions, FedEx put the driver on a 90-day temporary light-duty assignment. At the end of that light-duty assignment, if the driver still had medical restrictions, FedEx would place the driver on unpaid medical leave that expired after one year unless the driver qualified for short- or long-term disability benefits.
A 2019 Forbes report, citing research by Popular Information and Progressive Shopper, said FedEx’s corporate PAC donated $1,261,500 to 75 politicians who received zero scores on the Human Rights Campaign congressional scorecard during the 2017–18 election cycle. FedEx said it supported candidates on both sides of the aisle and sought an inclusive workplace.
6. FedEx donated $1,261,500 to 75 anti-gay politicians.
In a lawsuit announced September 29, 2025, the EEOC alleged that a supervisor at FedEx’s St. Rose, Louisiana, site harassed a female administrator for years, including forced sexual touching in September 2022. The agency says FedEx failed to separate them permanently and fired her after she refused to work with him. The allegations have not been adjudicated.
According to the EEOC’s suit, the administrator’s direct supervisor subjected her to sexual harassment for years, which the administrator reported to the company. The harassment ceased for a period and then resumed, culminating in forced sexual touching in September 2022, which was reported to law enforcement. The EEOC charged that FedEx refused to permanently separate the supervisor from the administrator and eventually fired the administrator for refusing to return to work with him.
FedEx agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a New Jersey class action brought by warehouse worker William Taggart, covering about 97,795 workers. Filed in 2023, the suit alleged workers were unpaid for required security screenings before and after shifts. FedEx said it admits no wrongdoing and denies violating the law.
FedEx has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by a warehouse worker in New Jersey who said the company violated state hourly wage laws.
On January 11, 2021, FedEx condemned the deadly January 6 Capitol riot, said it supported the election results and Biden administration, and announced a review of future political contributions. The company did not explain how its giving might change. Separately, CEO Fred Smith and COO Raj Subramaniam had earlier told employees racism and unequal treatment had no place at FedEx.
In June, amid widespread protests against racism and police brutality, Smith and COO Raj Subramaniam wrote to employees that there “is absolutely no place for racism or unequal treatment anywhere, and we must unequivocally speak out and reject it when we see it.”
FedEx said it is reviewing all future political contributions and denounced the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in a statement Monday.
The Human Rights Campaign’s corporate profile lists FedEx at 45 of 50 points for inclusive benefits and 15 of 25 for inclusive culture. The profile describes the benefits measure as assessing equitable access to healthcare and family-related benefits for eligible U.S. employees; it provides no further detail on FedEx’s culture score.
FedEx confirmed in October 2018 that it was ending its discount program for NRA members, while saying the decision was for business reasons and unrelated to a recent shooting. A separate ThinkProgress report alleged FedEx had confidentially allowed firearms businesses, including the NRA, exceptions to its standard shipping rules; FedEx later said customer-name lists were confidential and unauthorized for disclosure.
FedEx has cut ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA), eight months after it first received calls to do so.The shipping company confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday that it is ending its partnership, which offered discounts to members of the gun rights group.In addition to the NRA, FedEx is moving more than 100 other organizations that receive discounts to different pricing programs, the company said, according to the Memphis Business Journal.The move comes days after 11 people were killed in a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue. FedEx, however, told Reuters that its decision to end the discount program was unrelated to the shooting, citing business reasons for the move.{mosads}FedEx was one of several companies that faced pressure earlier this year to end partnerships with the NRA, following February's mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.Several companies, including airlines, car rental companies and banks, ended their discount programs for NRA members, but FedEx said it would not “deny service or discriminate against any legal entity regardless of their policy positions or political views.”The shipping giant at the time did state that its position on gun policy and safety “differ[s] from those” of the NRA and that it opposes civilian access to assault weapons.Though FedEx says its decision is not related to any mass shooting incidents, Reuters’s analysis noted that the move shows the NRA “no longer has the economic clout to inspire fear in the corporate world.”The NRA alleged in a recent lawsuit against the state of New York that it is facing significant financial difficulties, and a recent audit showed the group in the red for the second year in a row.The Hill has reached out to the NRA for comment.-- Updated 4:29 p.m.
While publicly trying to distance itself from the NRA, FedEx has made a secret agreement with the association and other major players in the firearms industry.
On Oct. 16, 2026, a district judge allowed FedEx retirees’ claims challenging pension calculations to advance. Judge Thomas L. Parker said they could compare their monthly benefits with what they would have received under a proper calculation. The retirees had previously persuaded the Sixth Circuit to revive their proposed class action; the claims remain allegations.
The retirees can press claims that FedEx shortchanged their pensions by using unreasonable calculation methods, because they validly compared the value of their monthly benefit checks to the amounts they would have received under a proper calculation, Judge Thomas L. Parker said Thursday.
On June 9, 2026, FedEx pilots ratified a four-year agreement, with 83% voting in favor and 98.5% of the nearly 5,000 pilots participating. The deal provides an approximately 40% hourly-pay increase, benefits and back pay; 3% annual raises begin in 2028. It takes effect June 29, after more than five years of contentious bargaining.
Pilots will receive a 40% increase in their hourly pay and other benefits, along with back pay (up to $150,000 for captains and $102,500 for first officers) to account for delayed raises during negotiations, according to a copy of the tentative agreement posted on a union website. Starting in 2028, they will receive 3% annual raises.
The tentative agreement includes hourly pay increases of nearly 40% this year, with 3% annual pay bumps beginning in 2028, per a union summary of the deal. The ALPA's FedEx Master Executive Council will now review the deal and, if approved for distribution, the offer will be subject to a ratification vote by FedEx pilots.
FedEx is integrating its historically separate Ground and Express networks, a restructuring that includes facility closures and workforce reductions. The company aims to close more than 475 stations, with over 200 closures reported as complete by a 2026 investor presentation. FedEx says the plan will cut costs and complexity without harming transit times; full U.S. implementation is targeted by the end of 2027.
Its largest competitor, FedEx, is also on a cost-cutting crusade — though a longer and more dire one. It started with big layoffs and parking planes and is working toward a complete structural overhaul of the business that marks a turning point for the 50-year-old company.
FedEx is making layoffs and closing facilities across the country as part of a plan to integrate its historically separate Ground and Express networks.
A November 5, 2014 ICIJ report said leaked records showed FedEx Corp. set up two Luxembourg affiliates to route earnings from Mexican, French and Brazilian operations to FedEx affiliates in Hong Kong. The report said Luxembourg taxed only one-quarter of 1% of non-dividend income flowing through the arrangement. FedEx declined to comment on the specifics.
The records show, for example, that Memphis-based FedEx Corp. set up two Luxembourg affiliates to shuffle earnings from its Mexican, French and Brazilian operations to FedEx affiliates in Hong Kong. Profits moved from Mexico to Luxembourg largely as tax-free dividends. Luxembourg agreed to tax only one quarter of 1 percent of FedEx’s non-dividend income flowing through this arrangement – leaving the remaining 99.75 percent tax-free.
In June 2016, California’s DTSC settled a civil complaint against FedEx Ground Package System, Inc. for almost $3.4 million and injunctive protections. DTSC alleged the subsidiary mishandled hazardous-waste packages, including transporting and storing them unlawfully; FedEx Ground did not admit liability. The settlement requires compliance with state hazardous-waste laws.
The DTSC complaint alleges that, since at least November 2008, FedEx Ground failed to properly manage broken or leaking packages that contained hazardous materials, such as acids, solvents, insecticides, batteries and other flammable, toxic, or corrosive materials. The complaint alleges that there has been more than 1,500 instances of mismanagement of these hazardous wastes, resulting in multiple violations of California’s hazardous waste control laws.
The EEOC alleged FedEx denied disabled Manhattan dispatchers’ requests to keep working remotely in 2023, despite their having performed the work remotely for nearly three years, and that at least one was effectively forced into retirement. FedEx agreed to pay $280,000 and provide policy changes, training, reporting and other relief; the decree provides a path to reinstatement for a former dispatcher.
In the lawsuit, the EEOC charged that in February 2023, FedEx failed to accommodate several dispatchers’ requests to continue working from home and demanded the dispatchers’ return to its downtown Manhattan office, effectively forcing at least one into retirement. The employee, and other disabled dispatchers, previously performed dispatcher duties remotely and successfully for nearly three years. According to the suit, FedEx denied continued telework based on an alleged operational need to have all its dispatchers work in the office and failed to engage with its disabled dispatchers to find alternative accommodations.
Three reports described FedEx delivery work for ICE, but gave different contract details. The Nation reported a $1 million contract expiring in March 2026; Fortune said FedEx received $1 million in 2021 for a contract set to expire in 2026 and that FedEx declined comment; Forbes reported a $2.3 million contract running through March 2027.
FedEx provides delivery services for ICE, having been awarded $1 million for this service in 2021. The contract is set to expire in 2026. FedEx declined to comment on the record.
On January 15, 2024, 180 FedEx employees volunteered at the company’s Moon Township, Pennsylvania, facility, packing 40,000 meals for Rise Against Hunger. The Pittsburgh event was part of a wider effort in which more than 800 FedEx volunteers in seven other cities packaged over 220,000 meals for people in need worldwide.
MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the employees at the FedEx Ground facility in Moon Township packed meals to feed the hungry.
California’s Civil Rights Department said it found violations of the Fair Chance Act after a contractor rejected a FedEx driving-job applicant over an old, unrelated offense. Under a June 3, 2026 settlement, FedEx will train relevant staff, revise hiring materials and notices, and pay the applicant $85,000, without admitting liability.
In 2024, CRD received a complaint against FedEx and one of its contractors alleging that an applicant was unlawfully rejected for a driving job. According to the complaint, the worker applied for a position with a FedEx contractor in Riverside County and was screened out based on an old and unrelated offense, without the companies taking steps required under the Fair Chance Act. The complaint also alleged that FedEx did not conduct an adequate individualized assessment of whether the conviction had an adverse relationship to the duties of the specific job, failed to clearly inform the applicant of their right to provide evidence of rehabilitation or mitigating circumstances, and did not notify the applicant of the final decision to withdraw the conditional offer of employment.
In a January 11, 2021 report, FedEx was described as having previously entered political debate during Donald Trump’s term. Chairman and CEO Fred Smith had criticized the administration’s use of international trade barriers such as tariffs and called the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2019 “profoundly disappointing.”
This isn’t the first time FedEx has waded into political waters during Trump’s term. Chairman and CEO Fred Smith has previously criticized the Trump administration’s use of international trade barriers like tariffs. In 2019, Smith said the company was “profoundly disappointed” when the U.S. withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
On May 30, 2023, FedEx introduced Sustainability Insights in the U.S. for packages sent through its Express, Ground and Freight units. The no-cost historical reporting uses near-real-time scan data to estimate emissions; some data outside the U.S. and Canada may be incomplete. FedEx also opened a fee-based API pilot for eligible shippers.
FedEx launched a tool for shippers to track emissions tied to their packages’ movement throughout the carrier’s network, according to an announcement Wednesday.
After the Supreme Court ruled on February 20, 2026, that IEEPA tariffs were unlawful, FedEx sued the government to recover duties and said it would refund shippers and consumers if it received refunds. A proposed customer class action in Florida then challenged FedEx’s promise as unenforceable, seeking compensation for potentially millions of customers; no refund outcome is reported.
FedEx is pledging to return any tariff costs it charged to customers if the Trump administration refunds the delivery company for the levies. "If refunds are issued to FedEx, we will issue refunds to the shippers and consumers who originally bore those charges," FedEx said in a statement on Thursday. "When that will happen and the exact process for requesting and issuing refunds will depend in part on future guidance from the government and the court."FedEx said it will reimburse customers days after it filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of International Trade demanding that the Trump administration offer a "full refund" of all payments the company made under a set of tariff policies that were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. "FedEx has taken necessary action to protect the company's rights as an importer of record to seek duty refunds from U.S. Customs and Border Protection following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that the tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) are unlawful," the company said in a statement to CBS News.The high court's Feb. 20 ruling did not address the matter of refunds for businesses that paid tariffs imposed last year by President Trump under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act.Since that decision, several companies have filed suit seeking tariff refunds, including Bausch + Lomb, Dyson and L'Oreal. The issue is likely to play out in the courts and could drag on for years, according to legal experts. On Tuesday, the libertarian-leaning Liberty Justice Center, which represented some of the original plaintiffs that were part of the Supreme Court decision, said it, along with co-counsel Neal Katyal, filed coordinated motions in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit as well as the Court of International Trade, to help create a process for refunds. A response from the government is due Friday.
FedEx said in a statement on Friday: “If refunds are issued to FedEx, we will issue refunds to the shippers and consumers who originally bore those charges.”
On Feb. 11, 2026, Federal Express security specialists asked a federal judge to approve a proposed $10.5 million class and collective settlement resolving allegations that FedEx failed to pay overtime. The deal covers more than 100 workers, with each receiving at least $500; the amount available to workers represents 57% of assessed damages after risk adjustments, according to filings.
Federal Express Corp. security specialists asked a federal judge for permission to move forward with a $10.5 million settlement resolving allegations that the company stiffed them on overtime pay.
An archived OpenSecrets page lists $3,724,997 in contributions for FedEx Corp. The supplied evidence does not specify the period covered, recipients, or contribution sources.
OpenSecrets reported that FedEx Corp spent $8.92 million on federal lobbying in 2026 through June 30, based on data downloaded July 23. Its filings most often mentioned trade, transportation, taxes and aviation issues. The listed total comprised $6.77 million in-house and $2.15 million for outside firms.
OpenSecrets’ archived FedEx Corp. summary lists $11,390,000 under “Lobbying” for 2023. The evidence does not specify the issues lobbied on or provide further details.
In October 2016, FedEx Freight, Inc. settled with California’s Air Resources Board after an investigation found failures involving drayage-truck registration and dispatch, emissions requirements, and reporting under state regulations. The subsidiary agreed to comply with the regulations and paid $92,000 in penalties.
An investigation by the Air Resources Board (ARB) showed that FedEx Freight, Inc. had: (1) failed to register some drayage trucks in its fleet with the Drayage Truck Registry (DTR), as required by the Drayage Truck (DT) Regulation; (2) dispatched drayage trucks that either did not meet emission standards and compliance deadlines or not registered with DTR, as required by the DT Regulation; and (3) failed to report vehicles utilizing compliance options subject to the Truck and Bus (TB) Regulation. ARB documented violations as they related to DT and TB Regulations. To settle the case, FedEx Freight, Inc. agreed to the $92,000.00 penalty and to comply with DT Regulation, TB Regulation and other ARB programs.