Freight transparency is not a new concept or a special favor. Federal regulation has required brokers to keep records of their transactions, and has given parties to those transactions the right to review them, for decades.
The problem is not that the protections do not exist. The problem is that awareness of them has faded and enforcement has weakened.
This is the backbone of rate transparency. Brokers must keep a record of each transaction they arrange, and each party to that transaction has the right to review that record.
In practice, that means a carrier can request the record showing what the shipper paid and what the carrier received on a load they hauled.
The right to review broker transaction records has existed for decades, but awareness remains limited, and carriers frequently report difficulty obtaining records.
49 CFR 371.9 addresses specific compensation and ownership conflicts. A broker may not charge or receive compensation from a motor carrier for brokerage service when the broker owns or has a material beneficial interest in the shipment, or when ownership relationships allow the broker to control the shipment. The regulation also limits gifts of value to shippers, consignors, and consignees.
Section 371.9 is not a general limitation on ordinary broker margins, and it does not currently establish the proposed 3 percent cap.
49 U.S.C. 14101 requires carriers to provide safe and adequate transportation service on reasonable request and permits carriers and shippers to contract for specified services, rates, and conditions.
It is relevant to carrier service and contracting, but it does not independently create a pre-booking broker-transparency right.
Knowing the right and using the right are two different things. Many carriers who understand 49 CFR 371.3 still avoid requesting records because they fear retaliation or being quietly removed from a broker's list of preferred carriers.
That is exactly why coordinated, documented, nationwide action matters more than any single request. There is protection in numbers.
This page is educational and is not legal advice. Regulations change and apply differently to different situations. Consult a qualified professional before acting.
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