Discrimination Against A Former Employee

[meh27]

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: tennessee
I worked for a local auto dealership for 20 years,i decided to quit my job and open my own auto repair shop .The dealership I was at as decided to sell me parts at regular over inflated customer prices, while selling other repair shop parts at wholesale prices.Is there anything i can do about this?

[cbg]

Yes, buy your parts elsewhere. You do not have a right under the law to be sold parts at wholesale prices; the prices he sells to other repair shops has nothing to do with you, and "discrimination" based on the fact that you are a former employee is legal.

[Betty3]

Is there anything i can do about this?

Sorry, no, there is nothing illegal being done here.

[SChinFChin]

Here's a few thoughts as a former "car repair shop" owner, and former "finance manager" at a few major corporations.

When I was with the large companies, I knew they were quite studious about issues of "price discrimination", price lists, and being sure they can document various pricing levels published. The reason being customers can sue under price discrimination. While this is not a "foreign export" shipment, there are laws actually passed that prohibit "over billing" under the "Foreign Corrupt Practices Act", and I knew that the company I worked for had overbilled, defined as charging over and above list prices, to then pay "kickbacks". In fact, I was told just overbilling itself is illegal even if they can't find a kickback.

I was involved in a corporate relocation where normal movers would charge $1,000 for the move, but my company mysteriously paid close to $3,000. It turned out after an investigation some years later that the person hiring the moving companies were paid a $1,000 bribe per move. I knew this guy, worked down the hall from me, and I wondered why he was driving a brand new BMW at his pay. I beleive they went after him, and the moving companies for illegal conduct.

So under, certain circumatance, charging a customer above the list price can be illegal.

Having said this, I once owned a busy repair shop, and while we were charged the correct wholesale prices from local car dealers, we were never able to get them to deliver on time, and often, we don't have staff available to do pickups. We made an arrangement with a local parts dealer selling us after market parts to go pick up parts at car dealers, and put on their markup. We found this preferable than to have staff running over to the car dealers, or wait another day for the part to show up, while the place is stacked with cars.

You might want to make such an arrangement with a local place eager to deal.

Another thing I know is there's TWO wholesale list where I was, with "body shops" offered an even higher discount than repair shops, so we sometimes find a friendly body shop to place an order for us, mark it up, so they would cover their costs, and the difference in discount is sometimes high enough that we even got the parts cheaper than at the repair shop rate.

Hopefully, you can work out the issue, working around it, or confronting it.

One final thought. I recall the "Anti Trust acts" were passed during the Teddy Roosevelt era, to prevent Rockefeller, through nefarious arrangements with the railroads, overcharging freight rates to the extent that it put his competitors out of business. A sharp lawyer may find some state or federal law where "restraint of trade" exists.