Company: GPI
Filing Date: 2025-02-14
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001031203-25-000013
Chunk: 54

Company: GROUP 1 AUTOMOTIVE INC
Filing Date: 2025-02-14
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 54
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 prohibiting certain restrictions on the sale of new vehicles and spare parts and on the provision of repairs and maintenance. For instance, authorized dealers are generally able to, subject to manufacturer facility requirements, relocate or add additional facilities, offer multiple brands in the same facility, allow the operation of service facilities independent of new car sales facilities and ease restrictions on cross supplies (including on transfers of dealerships) between existing authorized dealers within the network. However, under the U.K. Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Order 2023 (applicable until May 31, 2029) certain restrictions on dealerships are permissible in franchise agreements provided certain conditions are met.

In the U.K., the Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”) regulates financial services firms and financial markets, including our activities in acting as broker for the financing of vehicle sales. In January 2024, the FCA announced that it planned to undertake a formal review into the historic use of discretionary commission arrangements (“DCA”s) amid concerns that the practice of linking brokers’ commissions to the interest rate charged to customers may have been unfair to customers, resulting in customers paying too much for their car loans.

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Additionally in the U.K., on October 25, 2024, the U.K. Court of Appeal issued a judgment in the three joint appeals for Johnson v Firstrand Bank Ltd, Wrench v Firstrand Bank Ltd and Hopcraft v Close Brothers Ltd (collectively, the “COA litigation”), finding that the claimants in those cases are entitled to be paid a sum equivalent to the undisclosed commission paid by their lenders to the dealerships from which they acquired their cars, plus interest. Underlying the Court’s judgment were the findings that, among other things, brokers owe fiduciary and/or disinterested duties to customers, which, among other things, require disclosure to the customer of the rate and amount of the commission paid and the basis for its calculation. As a result, the failure to provide such full commission disclosure effectively results in the failure to obtain a customer’s fully informed consent to the payment of commission. The judgment also appears to extend beyond DCAs to address all commission disclosures generally. Finally, the U.K. Court of Appeal held where there is a failure to disclose, lenders and dealerships who acted as brokers are jointly and severally liable for the repayment of the commission.

After the U.K. Court of Appeal denied an initial application for permission to appeal, the motor finance dealers involved requested, and were granted permission, to appeal the decision directly to the