A US subsidiary of Irish forecourt retailer Applegreen is being sued in Connecticut for more than $6m (€5.7m) by the state’s Attorney General amid claims that fast-food chains operating at the subsidiary’s service plazas weren’t paying workers the wages they were entitled to.

However, the period in respect of which the claim has been made relates to a time before Applegreen became an owner of the subsidiary.

The Applegreen unit, Project Service, operates 23 service plazas in Connecticut, with chains such as Subway, Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts and Chipotle offering food and beverages at the locations.

Under the terms of the contract Project Service holds to operate the service plaza concessions, it is deemed the ‘required employer’ and is responsible for compliance of applicable legal requirements, including wages.

The Attorney General’s office noted that in August 2019, the US Department of Labour received a complaint regarding non-payment of wages at a Taco Bell located at one of the service plazas. That triggered a probe that uncovered a total of $2.7m in unpaid wages, with 2,068 workers affected.

“These workers did their job, and they deserve to be paid their full compensation,” said Attorney General William Tong.

He said that Project Service was put on notice “years ago” that their subcontractors were underpaying workers, in violation of state law.

“They have continuously refused to make their workers whole despite repeated warnings and demands,” he said, adding his office had been left with “no choice” but to take legal action.

His office is seeking the $2.7m in unpaid back wages and $2.7m in additional penalties and damages to “ensure this egregious wage theft never occurs again”.

Project Service has held the contract to operate the service plazas since 2009 and the wage claims relate to dates between August 2017 to September 20, 2019.

In August 2019, Applegreen, Swiss firm IST3 Investment Foundation and Canada’s TD Greystone Asset Management announced that they were buying JLIF Holdings and its subsidiary, Project Service. The deal closed the following month, with Applegreen taking a 40pc stake.

“Applegreen does not comment on legal matters,” said a spokesman for the Irish forecourt retailer.

Rochelle Palache, vice president of the local arm of the Service Employees International Union, said that most of the workers at the plazas are immigrants or people of colour and that they deserve to be paid fairly.

“While it winds through the legal process, we will continue to fight to ensure that all service plaza workers get a union so they can defend their rights and bargain to improve their pay and working conditions,” she said.

Applegreen, which delisted from the stock market in 2021 in a take-private deal with Blackstone, has an extensive footprint in the United States. It entered the market in 2014.

It now operates dozens of forecourts and plazas in states including Florida, South Carolina, Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin and Minneapolis. 

The company also has a large network of forecourts and plazas in Ireland and the UK and employs a total of 15,000 people across its network on both sides of the Atlantic.

Its chief executive is Bob Etchingham. A former Shell executive, he founded Applegreen, as Petrogas, in 1992, with COO Joe Barrett coming on board in 1993.