F&I Management & Training

It’s a pound to a penny that the overdue changes in Europe’s Block Exemption regulations will not be announced in accordance with the timetable.

And it is a reasonably safe bet that the politicians will defer it just before the summer break, go away on a long holiday and fail to get anything through before the end of the year.

For all UK car dealers, the measures the European Commission finally comes up with will determine how the sector makes money in the next decade. More important still for the owner drivers, the changes could have a bearing on how valuable their business is, and how easy it is to sell.

Consultation period

But as usual, delivery of that information is infernally slow.
Last May, an EC publication assessed how the regulations had been working up to that point. It was largely self-congratulatory; the view was that there was not that much need for change.

A consultation period was due to run to the end of the autumn but that never happened.

Instead, DG-Competition of the European Commission published the submissions on the internet, click here to view the document.

ICDP, the Solihull-based car distribution consultancy, was quick to publish the response that there was little support for the self-satisfaction of the regulators, or for the regulations that seemed likely to arise in the next phase.

ICDP director Andrew Tongue said: “With the exception of carmakers and importer associations and some of the member state governments, there is very little support from the rest of the industry, from national level regulators or from legal opinion for the conclusions drawn in the May 2008 evaluation report.”

Sceptics’ forecast

Then came the announcement that the new regulations would get an airing in March; then it was May. According to the latest gossip, it will be mid-to-late July. Hence the informed forecast from the professional sceptics, that our elected representatives will shuffle the job under the pending tray and make a grab for the beach towel.

The period of time set aside for drafting the framework for the new regulations then gets shot to pieces, and the existing Block Exemption expires in just under a year’s time on May 31, 2010.

DATED: 07.07.09

FEED: AM