According to a Reuters report, Volkswagen AG is considering legal steps to prevent a top German retailer from offering a 10 percent discount on Internet orders for VW’s crucial new Golf car.
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The report said that the mail-order division of retailer KarstadtQuelle has said that it plans to offer the Internet discount, with partner Carplus, on VW’s new Golf V.
“We will look into whether this is against the law,” VW spokesman Dirk Grosse-Leege was quoted in the Reuters report, adding there could be grounds for action if the Quelle mail order business were operating as a legal seller in the same way as a car dealership.
“If Quelle is merely acting as an agent for the sale of new cars, that could be okay in legal terms,” Grosse-Leege said. He noted that VW’s European dealers were not permitted to sell cars on to unauthorised distributors.
The report added that Carplus said it had contracts with around a dozen VW dealers, who it said were not breaking any rules by taking part in the scheme.
“It is true that VW dealers are not allowed to sell new cars to us. That isn’t what they are doing,” the head of Carplus, Heiko Eich, told Reuters.
He said his company, which employs around 20 people, was acting merely as a mediator.
However the Reuters report also said that the association of VW dealers said it was also looking into legal action, with dealers expressing concern that potential customers would start coming to them demanding 10 percent discounts. The scale of the discount being offered will undoubtedly be causing concern to Volkswagen, which is looking to re-build share and margins with the new Golf.
