Fla. dealership leaving CDK lawsuit, calls inclusion an error

A Florida exotic dealership was erroneously included in a lawsuit against CDK Global, and the company will withdraw as a plaintiff, its CFO said July 2.

"The CEO here has no intention of suing CDK," said Evan Bernstein, CFO of Prestige Motor Car Imports in North Miami Beach, Fla.

Bernstein said his Lamborghini, Karma and Lotus franchised store had spoken with an attorney but never approved joining the case against the dealership management system provider following its cyberattacks and outages.

"It was just a conversation," Bernstein said. He called a lawsuit against CDK "not at all on our radar."

Prestige Motor Car Imports had been listed as a plaintiff alongside independent Florida dealership Formula Sports Cars, franchise Georgia retailer Bill Holt Chevrolet of Blue Ridge and two Florida consumers in a lawsuit filed June 30 against CDK Global in the U.S. Southern District of Florida.

John Ruiz, an attorney at MSP Recovery, one of the law firms representing the case's plaintiffs, disputed having prematurely included Prestige Motor Car Imports.

"Our firm had authority to file suit," he wrote in an email. "The firm spoke directly with the principal. The law firm cannot comment any further as any other comments would be improper as those are covered under attorney-client privilege."

Bill Holt Chevrolet of Canton in Georgia also is listed as a plaintiff, though Bill Holt Motors no longer owns that store, and it has since been renamed to Chevrolet of Canton. Current owner Perrin Automotive Group is not a party to the lawsuit. Marcus Davide of MSP Recovery wrote in a July 1 email that the Canton entity was included because the CDK incident "potentially impacted sensitive data that has been in the system for many years."

CDK suffered at least two cyberattacks June 19 in what it called a "cyber ransom event." The dealership management system provider took its software offline as a precaution, forcing dealerships to find alternative ways to do business. On June 26, CDK said it had restored service to a test group of retailers, and it has brought others, including Group 1 Automotive, back online since. On July 2, CDK announced "substantially all dealer connections" to the DMS had been restored as of that morning.