USA: Chrysler-Jeep dealer hopes to reopen

Rimrock Auto Group in Billings, Montana, lost its Chrysler-Jeep franchise (along with 700 ohter outlets) five years ago. It won an arbitration ruling against Chrysler in 2010, and the manufacturer issued a letter of intent to reopen, but Lithia Motors, which had been awarded the Chrysler and Jeep franchises after the original termination, challenged that under the state's dealer franchise law. Under that law, Rimrock was a new dealership. Although both Rimrock and the manufacturer opposed that challenge, arguing that the local market would benefit from having another dealer, the state attorney general decided in favour of Lithia and Chrysler and Rimrock appealed again, this time to the Motor Vehicle Division of the Montana Department of Justice. At the time of writing, they are still waiting for the outcome.



It seems extraordinary to anyone accustomed to the way things are done in Europe that a matter like this should offer so many opportunities for review. Here it would be a simple matter of freedom of contract, and no Department of Justice with a Motor Vehicle Division in it. The European Commission has never been set up to act as a regulator.



Even more extraordinary, as if it were not enough to be able to take so many legal actions, Stephen A Zabawa, co-owner of Rimrock, is working with fellow former Billings Chrysler dealer Bill Underriner (vice-chairman of the NADA) to argue before the state legislature for changes in the law to give dealers even more protection. The idea of it!



'via Blog this'

Plaintiffs' Lawyers Take Aim at GM for Recall - WSJ

Plaintiffs' Lawyers Take Aim at GM for Recall - WSJ - too much ammunition for claimants in the GM report on the defective ignition switch scandal? http://www.autonews.com/article/20140607/OEM11/140609838/lawyers-scan-gm-report-for-details-to-bolster-negligence-suits.

Euro NCAP's Spotlight Falls on Heavy Quadricycles

Although they are not subject to the same safety legislation, EuroNCAP (New Car Assessment Programme) has subjected four heavy quadricycles to crash tests: the results are here and they might make some people feel rather uncomfortable. They do note that these vehicles, which are an increasingly popular alternative to scooters, offer better protection than something that you just sit on. The big problem might be that buyers don't appreciate that a machine can be street legal but untested.

Drug dealer injured in crash entitled to payment under MIB agreement

Although the judge admitted that the public would feel revulsion at the outcome, Delaney v Secretary of State for Transport [2014] EWHC 1785 (QB) (03 June 2014)
shows that there is no over-riding public policy rule against
compensating a drug dealer who suffered major injuries in a car accident
while engaged in a criminal venture. The law is based on EU directives
which allow no scope for such a rule. 

The language of product liability

Reuters reports  that US government officials have released to the public internal General Motors documents dating from 2008 in which engineers were told to mind their language when discussing safety matters - with a view to how internal documents would look to outside observers. They are instructed not to use expressions like "safety" and "defect" when identifying product risks, and "explicitly told them not to use inflammatory terms including 'widow-maker' and 'Hindenburg'." And whoever used "inflammatory" and "Hindenberg" in the same sentence should have known better, too.

Did anyone really have to be told this? Or am I just reading this from a cautious lawyer's viewpoint? Seriously, though, there are important points here - first, that what engineers write in their reports could be prejudicial, but second (as the Reuters article points out, quoting a NHTSA official) that the instructions rob the engineers of some of the vocabulary that they might need in order to communicate to others in the organisation the seriousness of a problem. "Defect" is hard to do without: "Hindenberg" will never have a place in such a document.

Information about alleged vehicle defect does not have to be disclosed

In a decision of the Information Commissioner [2014] UKICO FS50527543 the complainant had requested information held by VOSA regarding the Porsche Cayman vehicle, and in particular the VOSA safety evaluation of the vehicle throttle malfunction. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency stated that the information was exempt from disclosure under section 44 of the FOIA (prohibitions on disclosure), by virtue of the Enterprise Act 2002. Section 44(1)(a) of the FOIA says that information is exempt if its
disclosure is prohibited by, or under, any enactment.

Section 237 of the 2002 Act makes it an offence to disclose 'specified information' which relates to the affairs of an individual, or business of an  undertaking, during the lifetime of the individual or while the undertaking continues to exist. Section 238 clarifies that information is specified information if it comes to a public authority in connection with the exercise of its functions. The Information Tribunal has previously been asked to consider the use of section 237 as a statutory prohibition on disclosure and it has concluded it can be used in this way (Dey v ICO and OFT (EA/2006/0057)).

The Commissioner considers that the requested information is ‘specified information’ as defined under EA2002, section 238 (1) (c). This is because it has come to the DVSA in connection with the exercise of a function it has under, or by virtue of, 'such subordinate legislation as the Secretary of State may by order specify for the purposes of this subsection.' As the enforcement authority responsible for vehicle safety, the DVSA was exercising its function under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005. Those regulations (which implement the General Product Safety Directive 2001/95/EC) are subordinate legislation specified by the Secretary of State, and so fall within category (c) of section 238 (1) of the EA2002.

The Commissioner's decision is that the DVSA has correctly applied this exemption and does not need to take any further action.

Mercedes' 'Agility' HP contract not a supply of goods

The Upper Tax Tribunal has ruled that hire purchase agreements are not necessarily to be considered as supplies of goods at the moment they are made. The economic purpose of Mercedes-Benz’s ‘Agility’ programme was not to result in a transfer of ownership, although that might happen. Output tax on the hire of goods under an HP agreement was due over the lifetime of the contract, rather than right away. The tax treatment of the transaction would therefore depend on whether the hirer would normally take ownership of the goods at the end of that particular type of contract, or whether this was merely one possible eventuality.

Mercedes-Benz Financial Services UK Ltd v Revenue And Customs [2014] UKUT 200 (TCC) (02 May 2014)