The purpose of the Legal Defense Fund is to provide legal and or financial assistance in proceedings before administrative agencies, federal and state courts, and any other proceedings that have a significant impact and importance to the dealer body or a broad cross-section of IADA members. Some examples:

• The IADA Legal Defense Fund currently supports IADA, CATA, the Peoria Metro New Car Dealers Association, the Illinois Motorcycle Dealers Association, and over 300 dealer members in our lawsuit against the Illinois Secretary of State, Rivian Automotive, and Lucid Motors to preserve the important consumer and dealer benefits of the franchise dealer sales model. Motor vehicle manufacturer attempts to disregard the Illinois Vehicle Code and the Illinois Motor Vehicle Franchise Act and sell directly to customers is perhaps the most significant challenge motor vehicle dealers face today. Dealer support of the Legal Defense Fund is crucial to our support of the franchise system.
• The IADA Legal Defense Fund also supports a group protest before the Illinois Motor Vehicle Review Board filed by several Volvo dealers to challenge Volvo’s attempts to rebadge certain Volvo vehicles under the Polestar nameplate and offer the rebadged vehicles to a small minority of Volvo dealers. This challenge will make it much more difficult for manufacturers to impair dealership rights under their sales and service agreements if successful.
• In past years, the IADA Legal Defense Fund has supported several challenges to the Motor Vehicle Franchise Act, including a successful protest filed by Nissan and Infiniti dealers challenging Nissan North America’s $10 Million in illegal warranty cost recovery surcharges.

As you can see, your support of the IADA Legal Defense Fund is more important than ever. Legal defense funds are only expended on approval of the IADA’s Executive Committee or Board of Directors on behalf of IADA members who contribute to the Legal Defense Fund.