A law passed last month gave 2,800 dealers who were fired during Chrysler and General Motors bankruptcies lat year the right to file for arbitration. As of Tuesday morning the American Arbitration Association said that they had received the paperwork from 1,550 dealers, but that more were still being processed. GM has said that they feel that taking back some of the dealers would not harm their company, but Chrysler said that it would harm theirs. Chrysler did not make the decision to cut dealers based on individual performance, but will now have to defend itself separately in each case. It is expected to cost Chrysler hundreds of millions of dollars in arbitration costs, and the company is considering suing to stop the arbitration process.
See "At Least 1,550 Seek to Keep Car Dealerships", Nick Bunkley, The New York Times, January 25, 2010