When two dealerships owned by a Chicago-area group last week accused Fiat Chrysler of falsifying sales reports, it did two things: cratered FCA’s share price and launched yet another discourse about the industry’s integrity.
A civil racketeering suit filed in Chicago by two stores in the Napleton Automotive Group alleges FCA US offered dealers large sums of money to report unsold vehicles as sold. FCA vigorously denied the allegations, calling them “baseless” and “the product of two disgruntled dealers who have failed to perform their obligations” within their dealer agreements.
But the suit set off alarms. Dealers take carmakers to court all the time, so why did this one lawsuit strip more than $1 billion from FCA’s market value?
