Automotive

Production volume sinks, commodity prices fluctuate, margins erode. Shifting consumer demand and increasing government regulation make product strategy decisions incredibly difficult. Has there ever been a tougher time for the industry?

With our base in Detroit and more than 80 years of experience representing automotive clients, Bodman has a keen grasp of the industry’s unique features and challenges. We use our knowledge to help clients respond with speed and precision to every legal issue they face – whether it involves a dispute, a contract, a labor agreement, a workout, an acquisition or a joint venture. As global forces reshape the industry, our clients and our region are adapting to a radically new environment, with complete support from Bodman.

Our broad automotive experience has led to several significant and ongoing assignments in which automotive clients have asked Bodman attorneys to work on-site with their legal departments. These experiences have provided our attorneys with intimate and in-depth knowledge of the issues our clients face. Our attorneys have worked side-by-side not only with in-house counsel but with executives from a variety of departments, including business development, treasury, environmental, real estate, purchasing, and others, which has given our attorneys experience in the business aspects, as well as the legal aspects, of major corporate transactions.

Our Services:

Troubled supplier: Bodman lawyers have led demanding, detailed negotiations for accommodations from troubled suppliers. We have negotiated waivers of set-off, price adjustments, payment acceleration, and inventory and equipment purchases.

Litigation and ADR: Bodman’s Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice Group members have extensive automotive experience, having successfully represented both suppliers and OEMs in lawsuits involving unilateral supplier price increases, construction disputes, intellectual property disputes, breaches of contract, indemnity disputes, and many other issues. Based upon the recommendations of our clients, the journal Benchmark Litigation named Bodman as one of only five “highly recommended” litigation firms in Michigan (the highest rating possible) and Chambers USA ranks Bodman among the state’s top litigation firms.

Corporate/M&A/Joint Ventures: Our corporate attorneys routinely handle all manner of public and private mergers and acquisitions, international transactions, joint ventures, complex contracts, private equity funded transactions, SEC compliance work, tax planning and related issues. We represent automotive clients internationally in establishing vendor and customer relationships, establishing joint ventures and buying or selling businesses. Our automotive clients often ask us to manage the work of law firms in other jurisdictions and, as a result, we have developed relationships with law firms across Europe, Asia, North America, and South America.

Workplace Issues: Our workplace law specialists have a deep appreciation of our automotive clients’ need for quick, direct answers to employment law questions. Members of Bodman’s Workplace Law Group provide automotive clients with a full range of HR legal services, whether workers are hourly or salaried; blue, green or white collar; production, technical or professional; or something in between, from hire to fire, layoff or retirement. We cover policy, process, agreements, union grievances, litigation, and bargaining and administration of labor contracts.

Real Estate: Our real estate specialists represent automotive clients in all phases of the real estate ownership cycle, from pre-purchase to purchase, construction or remodeling, ongoing management, and eventual disposition. Bodman has served as exclusive real estate counsel to several major automotive clients and helped those clients realize maximum value from their real estate assets. For example, we have helped automotive suppliers in multiple sale and leaseback transactions of manufacturing facilities achieve maximum value before an anticipated drop in the market, in the consolidation of existing facilities, in the renegotiation of leases, and in the sale of excess real estate.

Environmental: Our environmental law specialists help automotive clients secure permits, satisfy regulatory requirements and litigate environmental issues. Bodman attorneys have assisted many manufacturing clients in the redevelopment of former industrial locations and other areas that had significant environmental contamination, were functionally obsolete, or were blighted. We have experience designing and implementing tax credits and incentives for Brownfield redevelopment and work closely with clients facing the challenges and opportunities associated with pending greenhouse gas regulations and other “green” initiatives.

Representative Matters:

We have represented several Tier-1 suppliers in disputes arising out of their vendors’ attempts to unilaterally pass through raw material price increases.

We counseled a multinational automotive component supplier in the strategic acquisition of a business with operations in Germany, Mexico and the United States.

We represented an India-based supplier in its acquisition of a troubled-U.S. based supplier, including forming a new U.S. subsidiary in a tax-efficient manner, helping structure an environmental cleanup, renegotiating a labor agreement, and developing new customer supply agreements.

We represented a supplier of driveline components in the acquisition of an automotive parts business in Michigan, including helping our client secure local and state tax abatements and incentives totaling nearly $5 million.

We represented a Tier-1 supplier in all aspects of the development of a 157,000 square foot facility in South Carolina, including site due diligence, negotiation of the lease, and obtaining governmental tax incentives.

We represented a Tier-1 supplier in the sale and leaseback of a nearly 900,000 square foot facility in Pennsylvania, including the negotiation of a complex environmental cleanup plan with the state.

On an ongoing basis we counsel a multinational supplier of automotive roof systems on strategy for staffing adjustments to its North American workforce, allowing our client to remain the right size to satisfy customer demand efficiently, while avoiding employment claims.

When the union grieved a supplier’s decision to outsource work that had traditionally been performed by union members, Bodman handled the arbitration. The arbitrator found that our client had complied with all relevant provisions of the labor agreement and upheld our client’s prerogative to outsource as a means of addressing economic pressures.

We persuaded a judge to void a temporary restraining order against our client – a supplier of cast, forged and machined components – that would have required our client to produce a bank of parts at a $1 million loss.

We successfully represented a Tier-1 supplier in connection with a threatened break in our client’s supply chain due to a vendor’s decision to sell the automotive portion of its business. We obtained an injunction against the sale until satisfactory substitute supply arrangements could be made.

We defended the financing arm of an automotive OEM in a lawsuit brought by a vendor of leasing software claiming damages of $300 million for inappropriate use of its software. Through a series of motions over more than four years, we achieved dismissal of all of the software company’s claims against our client.

We successfully represented an OEM before the London Court of International Arbitration in multinational litigation/arbitration involving the termination of a distribution relationship in Lebanon and Iraq. The proceedings involved complex questions of “transnational law” with witnesses scattered throughout the world.

We represented a supplier in a complex asset swap and purchase transaction involving business conducted at seven facilities located in four states including various contract manufacturing and supply arrangements between the companies.

We represented a major supplier, publicly traded on the New York Stock exchange, in the sale of its switch and solenoid business to another publicly-traded supplier, in a complex transaction that involved separating various lines of business and moving equipment, parts, and products and working with suppliers and customers to transition the business efficiently.

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