Kentucky Ford Dealer Under Fire Over Ownership Transfer

We’ve seen our fair share of interesting legal battles involving Ford dealerships over the years, with one of the most notable happening in Arkansas just this past March. There, a dealer group sued The Blue Oval, claiming that it claimed unfairly blocked the group’s purchase of a Ford dealership in Benton, Arkansas. The dealer group wound up winning that case and an $18 million dollar judgement, but now, Ford is dealing with another legal battle in Kentucky, which also involves a Blue Oval dealership.

According to Automotive News, Ford opted to reject an application from Pure Country Ford in Grayson to restructure ownership of that location, but the dealer proceeded to do so, regardless. As such, Ford is asking a federal judge to undo that reallocation of ownership interests, based on Kentucky state law and a franchise’s sales and service agreement – both of which state that a manufacturer must provide written consent before any transfer of ownership can occur.

The complaint from Ford states that Pure County Ford and its proposed 49 percent owner submitted an asset purchase agreement to the automaker back in February 2023, but the very next month, Ford opted to reject it. In August, the parties proceeded to execute that redistribution, regardless, which changed the ownership stake of the two involved parties from 80/20 percent to 51/49 and added a new minority owner.

According to The Blue Oval, the parties involved executed this move “without Ford’s knowledge or consent,” and that it wasn’t informed of the change until October 2023. Ford stated that it rejected the move “based upon the capacity metric of the proposed new owners,” adding that the new owner is “an individual who was not vetted, disclosed to, approved or authorized.” “Reversal of the membership interest purchase agreement is required,” Ford said in the complaint. “Ford seeks relief because of the illegal acts taken regarding the ownership, operation and control” of Pure Country Ford.