Retail Motor Law

Battle lines appear to be being drawn up between Thatcham, the insurers’ champion, and vehicle manufacturers over car repair methods and procedures, leaving repairers in ‘no man’s land’

As BSI fights SEL’s legal claim, in The Royal Courts of Justice, London, Thatcham faces its own possible litigation from vehicle manufactures over the supply of data and information which, they say, legally belongs to them.

Andrew Moody of RML, the Cambridgeshire based motor industry legal firm, said “The vehicle manufacturers have invested time, money and resources in creating and collating repair methods and procedures. It does not seem unreasonable of them to be reluctant to allow a third party to distribute this information for financial gain”.

Some vehicle manufacturers may even be alerting their franchised dealers not to freely distribute repair data to bodyshops even though bodyshops spend thousands of pounds purchasing replacement parts.

Whilst the argument heats up, BSI PAS 125 accredited bodyshops that have invested considerable financial resource to obtain a standard that many insurers dictate may now discover that one of the fundamental requirements to provide “access to current recognised repair methods” is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to satisfy.

It appears that Thatcham may have been charging repairers for supplying certain information it legally cannot supply. This service that Thatcham is legally committed to providing to repairers who have paid to subscribe may come to an abrupt end leaving many independent repairers without “access to current recognised repair methods unless they pay a more expensive fee directly to individual manufacturers.”

Moody commented “whilst insurers, via Thatcham battle this out with vehicle manufacturers and the Kitemark standard ‘on hold’ pending the outcome of the SEL case, repairers are most likely to be caught in ‘no man’s land’ and unfortunately friendly fire is as damaging to a repairer’s business as any other’.