You spot delivered a vehicle expecting to assign the contract to a finance source. Unfortunately, the finance source declined the assignment because the customer misstated monthly income, you could not verify information provided, or any of several reasons beyond your control. You have carefully reviewed the deal paperwork to determine whether you can rescind the
Terminate an Employee for Coarse Language? Not If You Tolerate it in the Workplace!
The federal National Labor Relations Board has recently shown that it will go to great lengths to protect communications of workers concerning employment conditions. The Board has repeatedly emphasized that workers must be free to communicate to protect their rights to collective action, including seeking to form a union. The latest decision by the NLRB
Advertising and the Feds
You have probably been reading a lot lately about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Its regulation of the companies that provide financing and leasing for your customers will have an impact on your business in the future. Franchised dealers, however, are not subject to direct regulation by the CFPB. That is because the Dodd
Congress Adds Weight to Government Agency Hammers – Massive Weight
Government is great about creating fictions to cover its intentions – commonly known as spin. The latest example of government spin is the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015. Rather than candidly admit to the public that Congress wished to enhance bureaucratic control through massively increased penalties, it invented the fiction
EEOC: How is Your Anti-Harassment Training Going?
On June 20, 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released the findings and recommendations of its Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace. Unsurprisingly, since one third of the complaints filed in fiscal year 2015 included an allegation of harassment, it concluded that workplace harassment remains a persistent problem. The finding
The Supreme Court May Have to Decide
It is not unusual for federal courts to disagree with federal agency interpretations. When some disagree, but others agree, only the U.S. Supreme Court can resolve the differences. Recently, there were two of these situations of interest to car dealers. Service Advisor Pay Update The U.S. Department of Labor stance on premium overtime for
CFPB Seeks to Ban Class Action Waivers in Arbitration Agreements on Finance Products and Services
On May 5, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its long-awaited proposed rule on predispute arbitration provisions. This was done as part of a curiously timed CFPB field hearing in which participants were given the opportunity to provide testimony on a proposal already formulated and issued. The proposal will ban class action waivers in
Still Filling the Federal Bucket List
In January, we noted that federal bureaucrats will impose the burdens of as many of their wish list items on businesses they can in the final year of the Obama administration. The trend continues. White collar overtime rule changes coming soon Car dealers enjoy special exemptions from premium overtime for salesmen, partsmen, and mechanics. However,
Filling that Federal Bucket List
As we warned in January, federal bureaucrats see the final year of the Obama administration as possibly their last best chance to check off the bucket list for amassing total government power over business. Last month we saw more evidence of that. EEOC Retaliation: Guilty Until Proven Innocent The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has
Data Protection
The complications of protecting data keep multiplying for dealers. Vehicle Data At the Washington D.C. Auto Show’s public policy panel this year, Federal Trade Commissioner Maureen Olhansusen warned that the automotive industry must step up their game in protecting consumer information or face enforcement actions from the FTC. She cautioned that the amount and quality