Automobile Dealerships

W&N represents a significant number of automobile dealerships in the Washington Metropolitan area and has developed an expertise in advising car dealerships on its business.

Automobile dealerships are complex businesses with unique operations and legal problems requiring highly specialized knowledge and skills. Our extensive familiarity with the automobile industry and the wide array of business issues unique to this industry gives us a distinct advantage in representing our automotive clients. We provide comprehensive legal expertise for automobile dealers in a wide range of operational, business, regulatory and litigation matters including:

• Day to day business operations
• Acquisition and sale of dealerships
• Dealership real estate
• Franchise/Manufacturer matters
• Regulatory, advertising and statutory compliance
• Employee matters
• Litigation

Our Experience

We represent automobile dealerships in the acquisition of other dealerships, real estate, financing for operations and facility improvements, as well as the sale of dealerships (or interests) to third parties, managers or family members. These transactions require preparation of comprehensive documents beginning from the letter of intent through the sale or purchase agreements and closing. Clients benefit from our decades of experience in acquiring and selling dealerships. We provide valuable advice tailored to the client’s goals and needs so that they can make informed decisions before proceeding.

Contracts. In the course of our day-to-day representation of our automobile clients, we routinely prepare and review virtually every type of contract with customers, vendors and suppliers ranging from the buyer’s order used by the dealership in every sale to the myriad of consumer disclosures (prior use, spot delivery, used cars warranty, etc.), license agreements, warranties, disclaimers, settlement agreements and releases that arise in the ordinary course of business operations.

Manufacturers. Automobile dealers must also deal with the unique contractual relationship with their manufacturers and the web of regulations imposed by the MVA. W&N routinely counsels automobile dealerships in all aspects of their relationships with their manufacturers from issues arising under their dealer sales and service agreement, facility guidelines and renovations, advertising policies, performance issues, manufacturer warranty claims, dualing and point relocation. We understand the interplay between dealer agreements, state and federal statutes and corresponding case law.

Real Estate. Because real estate is a valuable and critical part of dealerships, we have substantial experience representing dealers with real estate matters, including acquisition, financing, and leasing, as well as environmental issues.

Employment and Workplace. Automobile dealerships face a myriad of employment laws that affect their businesses. Navigating through these voluminous, complex, and sometimes conflicting laws can often be difficult. In business, employee disputes can often be costly and time consuming. Mistakes and unnecessary exposure to claims or the uncertainty as to what to do makes those costs much larger. W&N helps our automobile clients stay abreast of changing state and federal workplace laws and assists them in developing pay plans, policies and procedures to help reduce workplace liability.

We routinely draft and negotiate pay plans, arbitration agreements, non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements, non-competition and non-solicitation agreements, severance agreements and employee handbooks. We review and draft a wide breadth of workplace policies unique to the automobile industry, including those relating to MVA regulations, advertising, truth in lending and FTC regulations, financing, risk-based pricing compliance, money laundering, drug testing, information security and compliance with the Federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley regulations to name only a few.

Pay plans and employee workplace litigation pose a significant area of exposure to automobile dealerships. When litigation cannot be avoided, W&N has represented automobile dealers in every type of workplace litigation ranging from individual and class action wage and overtime claims under state and federal laws, to discrimination and harassment claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Acts, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADE), W&N represents its clients in these employment matters before they ever proceed to formal disputes, and when they do, in all venues, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, state and local agencies, and federal and state courts.

Litigation. W&N has successfully represented our automobile dealership clients in literally hundreds of cases involving every kind of consumer, manufacturer, and business dispute ranging from the run of the mill consumer claim (e.g., sales, service, warranty, or mechanical repair issues) to class action claims, contract disputes, business torts for negligent misrepresentation and fraud, real estate litigation and statutory claims arising out of federal and state laws (Maryland Consumer Protection Act, RICO, the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act etc.).

Some of our representative cases representing dealers include: