Stellantis Wins $5.5 Million Default Judgment Against Sky Auto Mall
A district judge in Linn County, Iowa, granted a $5.5 million award to Stellantis Financial Services, presumably concluding the captive finance company’s lawsuit against Sky Auto Mall of Newhall and Center Point.
SCS sued the group and its owners, Igor, Yelena and Alex Tovstanovsky, in March, seeking $12 million in losses and punitive damages stemming from a double flooring scheme.
KCRG reports the Tovstanovskys filed for bankruptcy and failed to formally respond to the charges outlined in the lawsuit. The reduced award suggests SCS was able to reclaim some unsold units.
The Auto Line’s John Lloyd notes no criminal charges have been filed against the owners, unlike a strikingly similar case that resulted in a multimillion-dollar settlement and jail time for 15 employees.
“In 2018, Ford Motor Credit discovered that Reagor Dykes Auto Group, a sprawling Texas dealer network, had spent years running a nearly identical scheme against it,” Lloyd writes. “… The company disguised the resulting hole with check-kiting, cross-depositing checks between banks to keep vendor and payroll checks from bouncing before the float cleared. The Department of Justice eventually tied more than $50 million in losses to the scheme.”
