“I think a large number will get reinstated,” autonews.com quoted him as saying today. “I think that's a given. It's in the hundreds.”
The law, which was signed by President Obama, sets a period of six months in which dealers can demand neutral arbitration after they get closed down. Closed dealers have until January 25 to announce their intention to apply to neutral arbitration. The arbitration judges must be named by June 15.
Last year, Chrysler closed down 789 dealerships, while GM announced it will shut down 1,350 dealerships by October 2010. Whitacre said that it’s possible GM made some mistakes and closed down some good dealers.
“The way it came out, if you fell above or below a line, you were removed,” he said. “But you had to do it that way. You can't just go around flipping coins, so you had to have a process.”
He added that it was impossible for GM to have a perfect process. Whitacre also thinks that arbitration could restore good and bad dealerships.
“The bad thing would be if they're a lousy dealer that has a lousy storefront and through some process they're put back in arbitrarily,” he said. “If they're a good dealer and would really push GM in a classy manner, like we want it done, then it would be really good.”
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