Gary Peterson, a Vail Resorts Inc. (NYSE: MTN) shareholder, sued the Broomfield-based ski-area operator and nine members of its board of directors this week, alleging that Vail leaders violated securities laws and breached their fiduciary duty.
Peterson’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado, echoes price-fixing accusations leveled against Vail and several other outdoor industry organizations in a pair of previously filed lawsuits.
“Beginning no later than January 2020, Vail and its horizontal competitors Alterra Mountain Company, Boyne Resorts, and Powdr Corp., working through the National Ski Areas Association and its data partner RRC Associates, exchanged confidential, competitively sensitive information, including revenue, cost, capacity, and pricing data, and used that information to fix, raise, maintain, and stabilize the prices of destination ski products,” Peterson’s suit claims.
In an email to BizWest, a Vail spokesperson said, “We believe that the claims are without merit and will defend the Company and our Board of Directors vigorously.”
Vail leaders’ participation in the scheme alleged in the previous lawsuits — one was filed this month and the other in March — was “no unforeseeable hazard” to the company’s shareholders, Peterson’s attorneys wrote in the complaint.
Members of Vail’s board “either knew that Vail was violating the antitrust laws and its own (code of ethics that prohibits exchanging future pricing information with competitors) and failed to halt the conduct, or consciously disregarded the red flags it generated, including the participation of the Company’s senior leadership in the trade-association gatherings and information exchange at the center of the scheme,” the lawsuit claims.
Furthermore, participation in the alleged scheme “caused Vail to issue a materially false and misleading” financial disclosure to investors and regulators, according to the complaint.
As a result, Vail’s board “were enriched while they were breaching their fiduciary duties and exposing the Company to antitrust liability,” the complaint reads. “The anticompetitive conduct also degraded the very product Vail sells, leaving its resorts overcrowded, understaffed, and beset by guest complaints, conditions serious enough to produce what guests dubbed the ‘lift line apocalypse’ at Vail Mountain, Colorado, and labor unrest at Park City Mountain, Utah.”
The company, which has seen its stock price lose half its value over the past five years, is in the process of implementing a new strategic vision, dubbed Epic Experience, to help the Broomfield company reverse a trend of tumbling visitor totals and softening financial performance.
Notably, the strategic shift pivots Vail’s focus away from growing the Epic Pass program — the subject of the recent lawsuits — and towards improving visitor experience.
The strategy involves a commitment to “white-glove” service and amenities for skiers, Vail said in July. That includes everything from private lessons with concierge services to slopeside valets for gear rentals and a new burger option featuring New School American Cheese, pecan-smoked bacon and brioche buns.
Additionally, Vail has begun to focus more of its marketing efforts on individual resorts rather than highlighting the broad portfolio of properties to which Epic Pass holders have access.
In August, the company launched a pair of marketing campaigns — “Kingdom of Breckenridge” and “Lifetime of Firsts” — to raise the profiles of Breckenridge and Keystone, respectively.
In early June, Vail reported that third-quarter sales fell 7% over the year to slightly more than $1.2 billion, “primarily driven by unfavorable weather conditions that impacted visitation and revenue for both local and destination guests, particularly at the Rockies and Tahoe resorts.”
Pass sales for the upcoming 2026/2027 North American ski season were down 10% year over year through May 26, Vail reported in June.
The lawsuit is Gary Peterson v. Vail Resorts Inc. et al., case number 1:26-cv-03889-DDD-CYC, filed Aug. 24 in U.S. District Court in Colorado.