Hawaii’s only Volvo dealership, which has been embroiled in a yearlong court battle with its New Jersey-
based distributor, has abruptly shut down.
Envy Hawaii LLC, which does business as Volvo
Cars of Honolulu, said Thursday it was forced to close after receiving a franchise termination letter
late last week from Volvo Car USA for breach of contract involving customer trade-ins.
The dealership at 704 Ala Moana Blvd. closed Wednesday after the last two mechanics walked off the job a day earlier.
John Martinho, vice
president and general manager of Volvo Cars of Honolulu, said the company ran out of money, had lost
more than $2 million this year, lost its rental lease with Kamehameha Schools and was unsuccessful in trying to sell the dealership since June.
He said the nine remaining employees will receive their final pay through today and that their health
insurance premiums have been paid through this month. The company had 52 employees at the start
of the year, Martinho said.
Mike Fedotov, the
owner of Envy, said he was devastated by the closure.
“I am heartbroken for
all my employees and customers,” he said. “This is not news I wanted to give them before Christmas.”
Martinho said the termination letter accused the Honolulu dealership of breaching its franchise agreement in a way that was detrimental to the Volvo brand and customers. He said customers complained to the distributor that the dealership was
late in paying off the bank loans of cars that the dealership received as trade-ins.
Volvo Car spokesman Russell Datz said the distributor is quickly working to find a new location to serve its customers in
Hawaii. Customers can
contact Volvo Car Customer Care for more information by sending an email to vcuscare@volvocars.com or by calling 1-800-458-1552 between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. Hawaii time.
Martinho said there are more than 100 combined new and used vehicles in
inventory that could be
repossessed and sold off
at auction by Indiana-
based NextGear Capital unless some other type of agreement is reached. NextGear had provided lines of credit to the Honolulu dealership until cutting it off
in June.
The franchise termination letter was the latest salvo between the two sides.
In November 2016, Envy sent a letter to Volvo
Car USA demanding that it cease its “long-standing practice of arbitrarily
inflating vehicle figures and
forcing the dealership to
accept inventory well beyond actual sales demand.”
Volvo Car responded by suing Envy the following month in California District Court for allegedly altering the standard dealer agreement.
In June, Volvo Car’s
California lawsuit was dismissed after the judge ruled it should not have been filed in that state. Volvo
Car subsequently filed a countersuit in Hawaii to
Envy’s lawsuit.
The trial for Envy’s
original lawsuit against Volvo Car is set for November.