Advice was provided to a large American vehicle manufacturing company with annual turnover over of $30bn in relation to abuse of a warranty scheme administered through its dealerships. Allegations related to certain UK based dealerships where concerns existed of collusion between the dealerships and customers.
Assistance was provided to the client in co-ordinating their investigation into the UK dealership sites of concern. Advice included engaging on behalf of an international firm of accountants to assist on reviewing data and operations of the dealerships. This investigation process enabled the client to conclude if there had been abuse of the warranty schemes available to customers to create unlawful profits for the dealerships.
The investigation concluded it was unlikely fraud had been committed but there had been misuse of warranty schemes which demonstrated a lack of governance on behalf of a manufacturing client. This led to improved processes and procedures to increase visibility of how the warranty scheme was being used and resulted in improvements on reporting of use of the scheme.
