The legal battle between factoring company OTR Solutions and DAT Freight & Analytics has come to a quick end, with DAT disclosing Wednesday that OTR had “voluntarily” ended its suit.
The closure to the lawsuit comes a week after OTR had won a victory in the Superior Court of Cobb County, when a court ordered DAT Solutions to suspend the operations of Outgo, a financial services and factoring company DAT acquired in May.
A spokesman for DAT, which put out a brief announcement about the end to the lawsuit, declined to answer questions submitted by FreightWaves about any provisions in the settlement.
“Following the resolution, OTR voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against DAT,” the statement said.
The lawsuit’s end came even as it appeared OTR had the upper hand in the dispute, at least in court. In the June 10 Cobb County decision, the court said OTR was likely to succeed on the claims it made in the lawsuit.
The court ordered DAT to suspend operations of Outgo and come into compliance with a 2021 non-compete agreement between OTR and DAT.
No suggestion of a new role for OTR
Whatever provisions were in the recent agreement between DAT and OTR, it does not appear OTR will have any sort of special presence on the DAT load board as it did before the Outgo acquisition.
“DAT thanks OTR for their years of partnership and their collaboration in reaching a constructive outcome,” DAT said in a prepared statement.
With the end of the lawsuit, and the ruling by Cobb County Superior County Judge Adele P. Grubbs, DAT is now free to market the factoring services of Outgo on its platform. “Outgo, a DAT product, is fully operational through the DAT One platform—delivering fast, transparent payment services that help carriers manage cash flow and keep their businesses moving,” DAT said in its statement.
OTR also declined to answer further questions beyond its prepared statement. “OTR and DAT were able to reach an amicable resolution,” the statement said. “We look forward to focusing our attention on serving the needs of our clients.”
Before the Outgo acquisition, the relationship between OTR and DAT involved OTR paying referral fees to DAT, while the latter’s load board had a blue checkmark next to OTR’s name to signal DAT had reviewed OTR’s creditworthiness for its factoring activities.
DAT and OTR had a non-disclosure agreement signed in February 2021. That relationship was strengthened in August of that year with a “referral and revenue sharing agreement.”
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