Roughly 8,000 U.S. dealers will share in a $335 million payday resulting from a colossal 2010 antitrust investigation. The issue? Suppliers were involved in a widespread price-fixing scheme that lasted decades, and nobody noticed until the FBI raided the offices of Yazaki North America Inc., Denso International America Inc. and Tokai Rika Group North America.
In the end, 65 individuals and 47 companies were charged by the Justice Department — resulting in over $2.9 billion in fines and jail time for a swath of fresh white-collar criminals.
However, none of that money made it to manufacturers, dealers, parts retailers, or consumers. Those players had to resort to filing civil suits in federal court against the companies. In 2012, the multitude of claims were consolidated and transferred to Judge Marianne Battani and the U.S. District Court in Detroit. Over $1 billion has been set aside for affected parties, with around $335 million of the sum going to dealerships.
Not all states are eligible, however. According to Automotive News, laws in 21 states prohibit indirect victims of price-fixing from recovering damages — leaving dealerships in Texas, Ohio, Washington, and many other corners of America to fend for themselves.
Figuring out who is owed what in the eligible states involves a level of tedium that is without equal. In addition to assessing which parts were affected and used by various manufacturers over several decades, volume also has to be taken into account. For dealerships, reimbursement is dependent upon vehicles sold over a fairly lengthy period, weighted by the model and the make.
Jonathan Cuneo, co-lead counsel on the legal team representing dealerships, said stores “with an active business throughout the class-[action] periods will receive thousands of dollars, with the largest dealer groups receiving more than six-figure payouts when all the cases are concluded.”
$335 million doesn’t go as far as it used to.
Trust in Japanese companies doesn’t go as far as it used to.
How about some more details? Was this related to parts in cars, service parts sold to dealers, or what?
Components that were supplied to OEMs and used in assembling cars that the OEMs sold to dealers.
I don’t get why dealers were harmed by this. All they did was pass the cost on to consumers. So they too will benefit from the fraud and as usual, the consumer is left holding the bag.
Yeay Lawyers!!
And as in most of these huge class actions, the only ones to really, really make out well are the lawyers.
I suspect the logistics of tracking down customers who had the cost passed onto them outweighs the benefit.
If the consumer gets nothing then neither should the dealers. What part of the inflated cost, if any, did they not pass on to the customer? I don’t buy the “difficulty in calculating” excuse. They know to whom the parts were sold, which cars they were installed in, and the owners could be located the same way they are for recalls.
As for over the counter parts sales the dealers actually benefited from higher priced parts, since they use a flat percentage of cost for their markup.
If it works out to 50 cents per customer, it’s not worth anyone’s time.
Okay, I got it. To make reliable parts you need price fixing. How sad that American companies do not get it.
Any one get an offer to join the Takata class action lawsuit? I got a post card from airbagrecall.com which I found out was a law firm in TX. I did get a check for almost $ 2.00 from the settlement of credit card foreign transaction fees.