THE DAILY

Wednesday, May 21, 2026

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The Daily

FMCSA official signals new carrier vetting standard after Montgomery ruling

The Supreme Court’s Montgomery decision rewrote broker liability in one ruling last week, and in Cleveland on Wednesday, the deputy administrator of FMCSA spent the afternoon explaining exactly what the agency will and won’t do about it.

Jesse Elison, FMCSA’s deputy administrator, joined FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller for a fireside chat at the company’s Freight Fraud Symposium, held at Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The timing was deliberate. Montgomery invalidated two of the defenses brokers had long relied on in carrier liability cases: the safety exception in the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which courts had used to shield brokers from state tort claims, and the informal standard that a clean FMCSA carrier record constituted adequate vetting. Both are now gone. What replaces them is the question the industry gathered to ask.

Elison’s opening position was firm: "Doesn’t change anything for us. We have the same authorities that we had. We don’t have safety authority over brokers." Then, almost immediately, he walked it back. "What’s changed is that clearly the activity of a broker is now considered part of a motor vehicle, and that is within our purview," he said. That tension—the agency maintaining its posture while acknowledging the expanded legal terrain—ran through the entire session. One thing Elison was unambiguous about: "We’re not a certification agency. The only time we make a determination on the safety fitness of a carrier is when we say a company is unsatisfactory."

The uncomfortable math surfaced during the Q&A. Doug Waggoner, longtime CEO of Echo Global Logistics, asked what percentage of carriers have actually been touched by FMCSA, even something as basic as a roadside inspection. Elison put the figure at 60% to 70%. Fuller sharpened the problem: what about the five-truck carrier with no inspection history? How does any broker underwrite that risk? Elison’s answer was that FMCSA needs to focus on "clarifying what the standard is" for the post-Montgomery world, but offered no timeline for when that clarification arrives.

One piece of infrastructure landed the day before the symposium. DOT formally launched Motus, the new carrier registration system using biometrics and data analytics to verify operator identities. Secretary Sean Duffy called it a tool to confirm "those who apply for these numbers are who they say they are." Elison positioned Motus as FMCSA’s primary weapon against freight fraud going forward, and advised carriers who don’t immediately need to re-register to hold off. "If you don’t need to go in, don’t go in right away," he said. "Most of our population doesn’t need to."

So What? Montgomery ended the legal architecture that gave brokers a clear carrier vetting defense. FMCSA won’t become a certification body, but Elison confirmed broker activity now falls within the agency’s purview. Until FMCSA publishes a new vetting standard, brokers are operating in a liability gray zone. Document every step of your carrier evaluation process now, because that paper trail will matter when litigation comes.

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Top Stories

TL spot rates reach 4-year high as regulatory capacity attrition outpaces demand

RXO’s Curve Report logged truckload spot rates 16.5% above year-ago levels in Q1 2026, the highest growth rate since Q3 2021. The driver isn’t a freight volume surge: RXO’s own TL volumes in April were off roughly 2% year over year. The driver is regulatory-driven capacity attrition pulling trucks out of service faster than freight demand is growing, and that tightening is bleeding into contract negotiations. "Q1 is typically the slowest shipping season of the year, yet industry-wide tender rejections were at their highest levels since 2022," the Curve Report said. Contract rates rose 2.4% year over year in Q1. Public carriers have since revised full-year guidance upward; many that entered 2026 expecting low- to mid-single-digit increases now see mid- to high-single digits. J.B. Hunt went further, telling investors last week it expects contract rates to climb 20% over the next two years as regulation and fuel costs purge low-cost operators from the market.

So What? Spot rates at a 4-year high with summer freight season approaching and carriers flagging double-digit increases for transactional shippers who played the spot market during the downturn. The window for locking in favorable contract terms is closing before Q3 volumes compound the pressure.

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DOJ indicts four Chinese container makers on global price-fixing charges

The Justice Department unsealed an indictment this week charging four Chinese shipping container manufacturers (CIMC, Shanghai Universal Logistics Equipment, CXIC Group, and Singamas Container Holdings) with conspiring to fix prices and suppress output on a global scale. The four companies control 95% of the world’s standard dry shipping containers. The alleged conspiracy involved reducing factory shifts, installing surveillance cameras to enforce output limits, and agreeing not to build new factories. Container prices roughly doubled between 2019 and 2021 under the scheme, with some defendants’ profits rising as much as 100-fold. Seven executives are named; one was arrested at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris in April.

So What? A criminal indictment on Sherman Act felony charges against the companies that make 95% of the world’s containers establishes a powerful public evidentiary record. Shippers and logistics companies that absorbed inflated container costs from 2019 through 2021 will be watching the criminal proceedings closely, because a conviction creates a foundation for civil litigation.

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FMCSA pulls 12 ELDs in single announcement, bringing revocation total to 79 since January

FMCSA added 12 more electronic logging devices to its revoked list Wednesday in the largest single-day revocation event since a May 2025 sweep. The devices — including 888 ELD, Dragon ELD, Action ELD, Mondo ELD, two versions of First ELD, and six others — all failed minimum technical requirements under 49 CFR Appendix A. That brings the revocation count to 79 since January 2025, a pace of nearly five devices per month. Administrator Derek Barrs was direct: "Safety is not optional, and neither is compliance." Carriers running any of the 12 devices have until July 20, 2026, to replace them. After that date, a revoked device triggers a citation, an out-of-service order, and an SMS mark on the carrier’s FMCSA record.

So What? The registered ELD list stands at roughly 1,050 devices; the revoked list now exceeds 250. At the current pace, the registered list falls below 1,000 by year’s end. Audit your ELD vendor status now, check for software updates in the past 12 months, confirm the manufacturer is still operating, and flag any related devices from the same company that have already been pulled.

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FreightWaves names 10 organizations as 2026 Fraud Fighters Award winners

FreightWaves announced the winners of its 2026 Fraud Fighters Awards Wednesday, recognizing 10 organizations across two categories — Logistics Operations and Solution Providers — for their work combating freight fraud, identity theft, double brokering, and cargo theft. Logistics Operations honorees are Arrive Logistics, ITS Logistics, RXO, Uber Freight, and Werner Enterprises. Solution Providers winners are Highway, GenLogs, Descartes, Samsara, and Truckstop.com. The results the winners reported speak to how far layered defense programs have matured: Uber Freight cut its monthly fraud rate per 10,000 loads by 84% from 2023 to 2025, Werner’s Secure Ratecon Protocol has logged zero trailer thefts involving compromised carrier email accounts since launch, and Highway blocked more than 527,000 fraudulent inbound emails in Q1 2026 alone, a 50% increase year over year.

So What? The common thread across all 10 winners is layered defense: human expertise, technology platforms, and documented processes working together. With Motus just launched and the post-Montgomery liability landscape still unsettled, the vetting and monitoring practices these organizations built are now the baseline the broader industry needs to reach.

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What We’re Watching

▸ The post-Montgomery carrier vetting standard FMCSA has yet to publish. Elison said the agency will clarify the standard, but no timeline was given. Motus will likely anchor any new verification framework. Watch for guidance from TIA, FMCSA, and DOT as the legal exposure calculus hardens for brokers operating without a clear safe harbor.

▸ Spot and contract rate trajectory through summer freight season. Rejection rates at their highest levels since 2022, RXO projecting Q2 spot rates to outrun seasonality, and carriers revising full-year guidance upward. Shippers holding 2024 contract benchmarks are exposed. Watch OTRI and NTIL over the next 30 days.

▸ The DOJ container price-fixing prosecution timeline. One executive already arrested in Paris. The criminal case moves forward with seven defendants named on Sherman Act felony charges. Civil litigation from shippers who absorbed inflated container costs from 2019 through 2021 will follow — watch for plaintiff-side filings as the indictment becomes public record.

That’s your Daily for today. See you tomorrow.

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