FTC to Detroit

There are 45,000 listed automobile dealers in the U. S., and most of them are upset over their relations with automobile manufacturers. Last year the American Finance Conference, a trade association of independent automobile finance companies, inspired a Department of Justice investigation of the trade practices of the four factory-affiliated finance companies which do 75% of the new car business. Under the then Assistant Attorney General Robert Houghwout Jackson, charges of dealer coercion were presently brought against the "Big Four" in Milwaukee. But the case fizzled when Judge Ferdinand A. Geiger indignantly dismissed it, after hearing that Robert Jackson was trying to arrange a consent decree on the side (TIME, Nov. 22, et seq.).

Since then, automobile tycoons have done their best to wheedle Congress and the President away from any further ideas of anti-trust activity. The National Automobile Dealers Association has done just the reverse, with these results last week: 1) Wisconsin's Congressman Gardner R. Withrow, directing the Federal Trade Commission to investigate automobile dealer-manufacturer relations; 2) FTC acquiesced to the N. A. D. A. petition for a conference to establish fair trade practice rules, chose April 26 as the day, Detroit as the place. On the agenda, among other things, said FTC, are "various forms of misrepresentation, including misleading illustrations; use of fictitious prices and terms of sale; false invoicing; coercion; commercial bribery; finance charge 'packing,' and price discrimination."

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