By Michell’s Account,
Who Recommended an $18-Plus Combo Price?

A franchisee’s amended complaint alleges that McDonald’s recommends that its Owner/Operators use the price recommendation services of a nationally recognized firm.

By William Douglas Baker

Founding Editor

Michell, whom Reuters describes as a Connecticut franchisee, alleges in an amended complaint (E.D.N.Y., filed November 1, 2024) that “By January 31, 2023, Deloitte had recommended to Michell that he price his Big Mac combo meal at the Darien turnpike restaurant above $18.00.” The same complaint alleges that he had priced the combo meal above $18.00 at Deloitte’s recommendation for five months before it became the subject of media attention.

McDonald’s said in a statement (AP, October 6, 2026) that “AI does not set menu prices at McDonald’s restaurants – McDonald’s franchisees do,” and AP reports McDonald’s also said it recommended prices to its franchisees, who own and operate 95% of its 14,000 U.S. stores, long before adopting an AI-enhanced tool. In the company’s sentences, franchisees set menu prices and the company recommended prices to its franchisees. This page keeps those two verbs apart.

Michell’s filing, and the company’s dated sentences

Michell’s amended complaint alleges that on February 8, 2024 a McDonald’s operations officer suggested he was deficient in not utilizing industry-standard advisors when setting his retail prices at his McDonald’s restaurants on the turnpike in Connecticut. In the same paragraph, Michell alleges that he subscribes to a Deloitte pricing recommendation service that McDonald’s recommends to its franchisees, and that the service is allowed to display McDonald’s registered Golden Arches trademark.

Michell also alleges that McDonald’s does not set retail prices in franchised restaurants, and that it recommends that Owner/Operators use the price recommendation services of a nationally recognized firm (Deloitte), which it authorizes to use its registered Golden Arches trademark in written price recommendations. Joe Erlinger, President of McDonald’s USA, wrote in an open letter dated May 29, 2024: “Our franchisees (who own and operate more than 95% of all restaurants in the U.S.) set menu prices for their restaurants.” Our comparison: the franchisee suing McDonald’s and the company point the same way on who sets the price, in different words.

Thomas, Reuters, Rossi, and the company’s sentences

Thomas v. McDonald’s USA, LLC and McDonald’s Corporation was filed October 2, 2026 in the Northern District of Illinois as Case No. 1:26-cv-12149. Thomas’s complaint alleges at paragraph 76 that Michell’s first complaint, filed May 9, 2024 in the Eastern District of New York, alleged that a Big Mac meal’s pricing was recommended by “industry standard advisors.” Thomas’s complaint reads that phrase, upon information and belief, as a reference to the company’s pricing tool. This edition did not retrieve Michell’s first complaint; Thomas’s complaint quotes it and cites it in footnote 15. Our juxtaposition: the phrase also appears, hyphenated, in paragraph 140 of Michell’s amended complaint, in his account of what a McDonald’s operations officer suggested, and Michell answers in the same sentence that he subscribes to a Deloitte pricing recommendation service. Thomas’s complaint cites that amended-complaint paragraph too, at its paragraph 62.

In its September 29, 2026 story, Reuters says it could not independently establish what the tool recommended to Michell. The same paragraph reports that in 2023 “the pricing tools suggested to Connecticut franchisee George Michell that he charge about $18 for a Big Mac meal sold off a state turnpike, according to the restaurant owner’s lawsuit.” The next paragraph says McDonald’s has disputed the lawsuit and said Michell repeatedly breached his franchise agreements. Reuters says that for this story it reviewed screenshots of the company pricing engine taken in August and interviewed nine sources with first-hand knowledge of the burger chain’s strategy.

Rossi’s complaint, Case No. 1:26-cv-12651, was filed October 15, 2026 in the same district court and names McDonald’s Corporation, McDonald’s USA, LLC and Deloitte Consulting LLP as defendants; the court record lists it as an antitrust case. Rossi’s complaint alleges, on information and belief, that Deloitte’s Pricing Advisors deliver the McDonald’s Pricing System’s recommendations to competing McDonald’s restaurants. Deloitte’s response, if any, does not appear in the documents this edition read as of October 21, 2026, and CourtListener’s entries for the Rossi case, read that day, show no filing by Deloitte Consulting LLP. Rossi’s complaint alleges that the Pricing Analyzer’s login page bears McDonald’s Golden Arches and Deloitte’s name, as shown in its Figure 1, which prints a login screen headed Pricing Analyzer, with a Golden Arches tile at upper left and the word Deloitte at lower left.

The McDonald’s statement quoted at the top of this page, as AP prints it, continues: “Optional tools are available to franchisees to help them make the best decisions for their businesses and customers, but these tools do not automate, coordinate or fix pricing in any way.”

Adviser, tool, engine

On our reading, the recommender named for the Darien price changes from document to document: Deloitte in Michell’s amended complaint; “industry standard advisors,” read on belief as the company’s pricing tool, in Thomas’s complaint; “the pricing tools,” according to the lawsuit, in Reuters. Michell’s amended complaint and Rossi’s complaint describe a recommendation channel that carries Deloitte’s name and McDonald’s Golden Arches; “channel” is our word for it. In the paragraphs and exhibits this edition read, Michell’s amended complaint names no pricing engine or tool. Rossi’s complaint alleges the link between Deloitte’s advisers and McDonald’s pricing system, in part on information and belief, and neither complaint, as this edition read them, attaches a record of what the engine recommended. This edition does not decide whether the adviser and the engine are one channel. Reuters reports McDonald’s as saying that its pricing portal is “a tool, not a mandate, designed to provide restaurant-specific recommendations to help franchisees deliver value for customers and make informed business decisions.”

Engine output, Fresno prices, a 2021 price

As of October 21, 2026, none of the documents this edition read reproduces an output of McDonald’s pricing engine showing a recommended price for a named restaurant or item, and none independently establishes such a recommendation. Thomas’s complaint ties the Darien price to the company’s pricing tool upon information and belief (paragraph 76); Reuters attributes “the pricing tools suggested” to the restaurant owner’s lawsuit and says it could not independently establish what the tool recommended. A McDonald’s spokesman told The Associated Press: “All we do is provide the context of what’s going on ... We don’t have any way to affect the menu pricing in a restaurant.”

Reuters reports that a September check of the McDonald’s mobile app found a company-run store in Fresno, California selling a Big Mac for $5.69 and another company-run restaurant two miles away selling it for $6.89, and says it could not confirm whether the difference results from the price engine’s recommendations or other factors; Rossi’s complaint, citing a 2021 Reuters report, credits Deloitte with a $3.69 chicken-sandwich recommendation, as an example of Deloitte’s advice.

The company’s other dated sentences

AP reports that McDonald’s said it has used an AI-enhanced pricing tool for more than a decade. Our comparison: AP’s “more than a decade” reaches back earlier than the “since at least 2019” that Reuters and both 2026 complaints give for McDonald’s use of a pricing tool. The Motley Fool’s transcript of the August 4, 2026 call records Christopher Kempczinski, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, as saying: “We’re now close to having all our major markets on one app, one loyalty program, one pricing engine, one HR system and one finance system.”

Limits of this edition, and one question

This edition states no cause, no motive and no outcome, and does not say any person, firm or tool set any price. The comparison covers what documents print about one price; it does not rank the people or firms named.

Court-index entries were read on October 21, 2026. Not read: Michell’s first complaint, a December filing by the franchisee that Reuters cites, the video or transcript of McDonald’s September 2026 Investor Day, Reuters’s screenshots, and the 2021 Reuters report that Rossi’s complaint cites. We map the record, not any person or company, to Contextual Ambiguity, with Decision Exclusion possibly contributing, within Digital Derangement Syndrome™ (DDS™), the house name for the condition in which AI systems fail to recognize real expertise. The fit is loose, and the tag is ours.

Our analogy: the documents this edition read describe the author of the one named price in different ways, at different strengths; so when a recommended fee, ranking or placement reaches you under a person’s or a firm’s name, ask in writing whether a person, a tool, or a person relaying a tool produced it.