Dek: A proposed federal antitrust complaint says McDonald’s pricing recommendations helped coordinate prices among restaurants. The docket confirms the filing, while the allegations remain unresolved and the company says franchisees set prices independently.

Michael Thomas filed a proposed antitrust class action against McDonald’s in federal court in Chicago on Oct. 2. The complaint alleges that a machine-learning pricing system helped coordinate menu prices across McDonald’s restaurants. The docket records the filing and early procedural entries; it contains no merits ruling.

The allegation concerns whether recommendations and shared sales data affected restaurants’ independent pricing decisions. McDonald’s says franchisees remain free to set their own prices. The filing itself does not establish that the company or its franchisees fixed prices.

What the complaint alleges

The Northern District of Illinois docket listing lists Thomas v. McDonald’s USA LLC et al., case 1:2026cv12149, as an antitrust action. It records the complaint and jury demand as filed on Oct. 2, followed by an attorney appearance the next day. The listing does not include the complaint text in open access, so the allegations here are drawn from reporting that describes the filing.

The Reuters report says the complaint accuses McDonald’s of coordinating menu prices across its company-owned restaurants and independent franchises through an AI-powered pricing system. Reuters also reports that the suit alleges McDonald’s conspired with franchisees using algorithms trained on nonpublic data. The accessible portion of Bloomberg Law’s report says the complaint describes a centralized machine-learning “pricing engine” that pools confidential sales data to generate recommendations, which the plaintiff says effectively turns competing restaurants into price-fixing partners.

These are the plaintiff’s allegations as reported by the two outlets. The docket confirms the filing, but it does not verify the system’s design, how restaurants used recommendations, or whether the conduct violated antitrust law.

McDonald’s describes recommendations and franchisee control

Before the lawsuit, McDonald’s published an Oct. 1 statement saying its pricing tool provides restaurant-specific recommendations and that franchisees independently set their menu prices. The company says franchisees decide whether to use the recommendations, and that its software does not set or change prices, price individual customers, or change prices in real time.

In the same Reuters report, the company called the allegations “speculative and uninformed” on Oct. 5 and said franchisees make their own pricing decisions. That response addressed the lawsuit; the Oct. 1 statement preceded it.

What the public record establishes

The filing proposes a class action; the docket listing does not show that a class has been certified. It records the complaint and cover sheet on Oct. 2 and an attorney appearance on Oct. 3.

For customers, the filing alone does not show that a particular menu price was set by AI or changed because of this tool. It also does not establish how any particular franchisee used the recommendations.

The complaint PDF was not available in the open docket mirror used here. BIG CHANGE did not test McDonald’s pricing software or independently measure menu prices.

The big change

The filing puts McDonald’s pricing recommendations at the center of an antitrust dispute. The docket verifies the complaint’s Oct. 2 filing; Reuters and Bloomberg Law describe its allegations, and McDonald’s says franchisees control their prices. The allegations remain unresolved.

Sources & further reading

Evidence note: BIG CHANGE reviewed the public docket metadata, the company’s Oct. 1 statement, and Reuters and Bloomberg Law reports. The complaint text was not located in open access. BIG CHANGE did not test the pricing system or independently measure menu prices.