The owner of the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans is battling for ownership of a Mississippi dealership she claims was sabotage by Nissan and rival dealer.
In a detailed story from the The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate, the issues resolves around Gayle Benson objecting to Nissan’s decision to exercise its “right of first refusal” allowing carmakers to intervene in the sale of a dealership and put in a preferred buyer.
The allegations are just the latest twist surrounding the estate of the Ray Brandt Auto Group attempts to sell off dealerships in Mississippi and Louisiana.
Dispute Details
Brandt died three years ago of cancer and his widow Jessica Brandt and his grandchildren, Alexis and Zachary Hartline, agreed last March to sell the car group and other assets to resolve their dispute over his estate. The 14 car dealerships, collision centers and the associated real estate are valued at about $280 million.
The Brandt estate agreed in November 2023 to sell Benson seven dealerships, including the Porsche dealership in Metairie, LA, a Toyota location in Kenner, LA and a Mercedes-Benz in south Mississippi
The Benson Automotive Group, which at one time owned about 30 dealerships across Texas and Louisiana but is now down to four in Louisiana, had agreed to buy the Nissan and Infiniti dealerships in D’Iberville, MS, as well as the Infiniti store in Metairie, LA, as part of a seven dealership deal from the Ray Brandt Auto Group.
Brandt Deals
Brandt agreed to sell the remaining dealerships to Troy Duhon’s Premier Auto Group—primarily Brandt’s cluster of dealerships in Harvey, including Genesis, Nissan, Kia, Chrysler and Hyundai, as well as a Chevrolet in south Mississippi.
In the months after the deal was agreed to, several of the carmakers intervened to exercise their right to install different buyers than those agreed to by the Brandt estate.
That included Toyota, which replaced Benson with Damien Mills, owner of the largest Black-owned car dealership network in the country, as its preferred buyer for the Kenner dealership. Kia in Harvey, slated to go to Mills instead of Duhon, was eventually assigned to Tameron Automotive Group of Daphne, AL.
General Motors opted to sell the south Mississippi Brandt Chevrolet dealership to Bob Boyt, a local dealer there, instead of Duhon.
Benson Allegations
The sale of the Infiniti in Metairie is now held up while the state regulatory case is pending. Nissan, which owns the Infiniti brand, reportedly had been lining up a second alternative buyer for the Brandt Infiniti dealership in south Mississippi that Benson had agreed to purchase.
As detailed by the Benson Automotive Group in a letter to the Louisiana Motor Vehicle Commission, it alleged executives from Nissan and rival local car dealer Matt Bowers illegally blocked the deal to buy the two dealerships and instead arranged for Bowers to buy them by using the automakers right of first refusal for the sale of a dealership.
The carmakers typically invoke the refusal for reason such as to increase the diversity of their dealer network, encourage additional investments or to put in someone with a better performance record.
Fighting Nissan, Bowers
In their letter, the Benson Automotive Group claims Nissan used missed deadlines as part of the deal as a ploy to switch buyers unfairly. Nissan’s claim “is nothing more than a pretext” to justify an “untimely and unlawful exercise” of the right of first refusal, according to published reports.
“Mr. Bowers (a competitor of Mrs. Benson) pressured Nissan/Infiniti—through his personal relationships with high-level executives—to exercise these untimely and invalid rights of first refusal,” Rouchell wrote. “It is the legal position of Mrs. Benson that Mr. Bowers’ actions give rise to an actionable claim against…both Mr. Bowers and Nissan/Infiniti for civil conspiracy.”.
Bowers, a New Orleans native, has built up a regional network of more than a dozen dealerships in the last eight years. His attorney, Jeremy Hebert, told the local paper the allegations were “unfounded,” and added that Benson’s issue would be with the car company, not his client.
Court Date Looming
The Louisiana State Motor Vehicle Commission has set April 11 for an initial hearing for the Nissan case. The commission, whose 15 members are mostly car dealers, typically tries to arbitrate a settlement in disputes of this nature.
If a settlement cannot be reached, it goes to a panel of three board members who are not car dealers to decide if state rules were broken in the transactions. If that were to happen, they could potentially impose fines and penalties or scuttle the deal. That hearing is set for May 20 if a settlement isn’t reached.