§ 794.114 The enterprise must be “independently owned and controlled.”

Another requirement for exemption under section 7(b)(3) is that the enterprise must be “independently owned and controlled”. Since this requirement is in the conjunctive, it must be established that the enterprise which is engaged in the wholesale or bulk distribution of petroleum products is both independently owned and independently controlled. (Wirtz v. Lunsford, 404 F. 2d 693 (C.A. 6).) At the hearing before the Senate Labor Subcommittee, when the amendment was proposed which eventually was incorporated in the Act as section 13(b)(10) by the 1961 amendments (later repealed by the 1966 amendments to the Act and replaced by section 7(b)(3)), a spokesman for proponents of the amendment made the following statement, which bears on this requirement for exemption:

It appears, therefore, that the purpose of the requirement limiting the exemption to the enterprises which are “independently owned and controlled,” is to confine the exemption to those petroleum jobbers who own their own facilities and equipment and who are not subsidiaries nor controlled by any producer, refinery, terminal supplier or so-called major oil company. (See Wirtz v. Lunsford, cited above.) The fact that the petroleum jobber sells a branded product of a major oil company will not, of itself, affect the status of his enterprise as one which is “independently owned and controlled”. So also the fact that the jobber owns gasoline service stations, which he leases or which he operates himself, will not affect the status of his enterprise as being “independently owned and controlled”.