STG

Where or what state a buyer decides to register their car has nothing to do with the story here. What next, how many miles they going to drive?? Stay on topic. There are other threads regarding Montana LLC's you can participate in.

stout

Been thinking about this thread, and am disappointed to see this dumpster fire fueled with such limited information. Of course, if the worst speculation proves true—but that's an if, not a fact.

I do agree that ADM is relevant, as it created an opportunity for the scam. ADM has never sat well with me, but I'm heartened to see 80%~ of survey respondents (here on RL, anyway) didn't pay ADM. Even so, it's a big enough problem (20%~ plus the door to scams that it opens) to be dealt with, but I don't think this is easy with US dealer franchise laws. Just did a story that got into PAG's attempt to take over sales in the US in the 1980s, which only strengthened the dealers' collective hand.

More importantly, I've been thinking about my interactions with people at Champion over 20 years. As I have, I can't think of a single time when an employee of Champion acted in anything other than a professional, or an exemplary, manner. I can tell you, that isn't something I can say for a lot of the aftermarket companies I've dealt with. What's that worth? Granted, my interactions have been limited to people who build race and modified street cars—and service customer cars when not doing that—as well as some folks on the marketing side, but, in hindsight, their professionalism suggests something worthwhile in the culture.

So I'm not quite ready to rule that 20-year record worthless based on the information I've seen so far. But as we all know, if you get enough people in anything, you get...people. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The important thing is how Champion deals with this, and does so without Dave Maraj. I'm watching, too, as I've been directly involved in removing advertisers from publications I've edited when we felt that they had harmed readers and were unwilling to make things right. In this case, Champion issued a statement that it will make those affected whole. Yesterday would be good, but I suppose they need to do some diligence before handing out $75,000 checks to people—for sales they may have no records for.

In the meantime, the rest is speculation that has a very real chance of hurting honest, hard-working, and completely professional people who work for Champion. My view is to take a wait and see, while feeling for those who affected here—the ones out large sums of cash. YMMV, of course...

993KHTO

Are you aware of the "Fellow Assets" (Rampage) 911r litigation?

Bartleby7334

993KHTO

This is incorrect. Champion did not state this in their official statement. The crafty wording of the statement leads you to believe this, but this is simply not stated in their official statement.

STG

Get your point and some valid points. I assume an average buyer who goes though a broker to be referred to a dealer isn't probably 100% sure how this ADM or "brokers fee" really works in regards to final paperwork.

The more interesting thing is, how are these brokers accounting for their commission income and how are dealers accounting for payments to them?

STG

According to their statement they aren't making any promises or concrete statements. It's all feel good fluff to pass the media snowstorm. I've read plenty of legal documents to know. Nobody is even taking responsibly for writing it.

Nor were they taking calls from victims, nor did they reach out to any before this hit Rennlist and the media. They still aren't.

Time will tell ...

stout

"We are working diligently to investigate and confirm which customers were impacted and fully intend to stand by our customers to assist them. It is our intention to insure that each customer impacted by this matter receives the amount delivered to the fictitious entity under a fraudulent order."

I don't know. They are making their intentions both clear and public. Without concrete records, or...any records in some cases, I am not sure how much more you want Champion to say? My read is: We intend to make customers whole in the amount delivered. Perhaps there may also be a need to determine who was a victim and who was a participant (broker in cahoots?) who lost money to Sookralli. I suspect there's a lot of information to be collected and confirmed when it comes to doing anything other than speculating.

The whole thing is pretty awful.

STG

I agree. I believe with all the recent media attention this will push them to resolve this as soon as possible. They will likely take accelerated actions now, where if not for the unwanted publicity victims would be in a lot worse situation going forward.

By the way, the damage from the negative public relations due to their poor handling of this has easily surpassed $2.5MM alone. There are literally 100's of thousands of views on all these articles. Will surpass 1,000,000 impressions easily by next week. Better to be proactive than try and put out a five alarm fire after the fact.

Shiraaz has an unpleasant future ahead of him ..

dark knight

I hope PAG helps the affected by offering them allocations, that would make these people "whole" again as they paid a deposit of ADM, right? Its a dirty game, guess we'll see who's in it

splinterAMG

And seeking child support for 10 offspring?

Manifold

I think it will take time to properly investigate this and reliably know what happened before any checks are written to buyers.

I also find it implausible that numerous people near the top of Champion were in on it. This kind of scheme has a limited amount of time before the problem is detected and the perpetrator needs to flee with the money.

911therapy

If there is a contract executed between Buyer and Champion, then the contract is enforceable regardless of the fraud committed by the salesman. The salesman is the agent for the dealership and his signature binds the dealership. So, yes there is an enforceable contract. But that does not truly end the matter. The real question is this: What is the remedy? In a breach of contract case, there are two primary remedies. One remedy is a claim for specific performance (force the parties to do what the contract said, i.e. sell the customer the specific car that they bargained for).

The other remedy is a claim for money damages. In most cases, this would simply be a refund of the deposit paid, plus any attorneys fees and costs incurred. But, in some cases, this could also include a claim for lost profits. For example, if the customer was paying MSRP for a GT2RS and the GT2RS was actually worth $100k over MSRP, then the customer could claim lost profit damages. Although, most contracts limit "consequential damages" such as lost profits.

The remedies are mutually exclusive, You cannot force specific performance of the contract (get the car) and recover money damages (the deposit and or lost profits).

Specific performance does not seem like a real option with Porsche GT cars - simply because of the limited number of cars available. If there is no real car to sell to the Buyer, then specific performance is impossible. Thus, the Buyer is left with recovering the deposit.

While the Buyer's (or their lawyers) might not be able to connect Champion with the actual fraud, they can prevail on either a breach of contract claim or a negligence claim to recover the deposits from Champions.

Side note: ​​​​​​I've had similar cases over the years. One case was eerily similar - my client was a pool contractor that sells and constructs swimming pools (average sale price of $150,000). A salesman for my client set up a company that was very similar in name to my client's name. The salesman would "sell" the pool and take a deposit. Then, he would negotiate the check and deposit it in his similarly named company account. So the customer thinks it has a contract and my client's agent signed the contract, so it was bound to the contract. But, my client never received the deposit. Although the only real recourse against the pool company was for refund of the deposits (or if they are stand-up like my client, they build the pool per the contract terms and have to take a loss to preserve their reputation and make the customer happy).

promocop

Well stated. And an above post comment that..."this is not about ADM?" PLEASE. Its totally about ADM and GREED. These guys were speculating, just like any other form of speculation (gambling, stocks etc.,), they got burned. So be it. I believe that Champion is ernest in making them whole. We will see. Many issues, including avoiding paying sales tax (fraud) on the ADM, and don't tell me these guys who put down this very large deposits went trying to avoid THAT.!

Bartleby7334