Back in January of 2016, a civil lawsuit was filed against FCA by dealers in Illinois and Florida that claimed FCA was using dirty reporting tactics to pad its sales numbers. The suit came after FCA posted record sales numbers for December of 2015, and has finally garnered a lot of attention. According to Bloomberg, FCA is now being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission over the alleged sales padding scheme.
The suit filed back in January claims that FCA was paying dealers to create false delivery reports, which in turn, made it look like the brand was selling way more vehicles than it really was. There was also a similar lawsuit filed previously by a Maserati dealership, which also claimed FCA was paying its dealers to pad their sales numbers. According to Bloomberg, Fiat Chrysler announced that “an internal investigation concluded the padding allegations were baseless and the lawsuit was nothing more than the product of two disgruntled dealers” as early as January 14, 2015, but that wasn’t enough to keep investigators off their back.
In fact, multiple media outlets are reporting that the FBI and SEC hasn’t only raided FCA offices, but the homes of staff as well. According to Automotive News, Federal staff attorneys paid a visit to FCA headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan on July 11 and that employees were advised not to speak with investigators without counsel present. These allegations of performance padding, should they turn out to be true, could be a massive blow for FCA and could turn out to be the next big automotive scandal.
Keep reading to learn about what this means to FCA and why it is such a big deal.
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