Harley-Davidson Statement - Harley-Davidson Cologne / Bonn

Official statement from Harley-Davidson

In recent days, there have been various reports in the media on the termination of dealer contracts, from Harley-Davidson Cologne and Harley-Davidson Bonn. From Harley-Davidson's point of view, the presentation in the press about this incident is not entirely correct, which is why they are now responding to the press inquiries.

Harley-Davidson responds to the questions from the Cologne City Gazette as follows:

09.01.2022

On what grounds were the two contractual partners terminated? On what date were they terminated and when were the two dealers notified of the decision?

As a matter of principle, we do not comment on such details in relation to our former and existing authorized dealers. However, if they proactively approach the press - as is the case here - we feel compelled to respond.

After obtaining the opinion of the managing directors and weighing up all the circumstances, the dealers were informed on December 14, 2021 that the contractual relationships would not be continued with immediate effect.

Does the dismissal have anything to do with the racist outburst by a former managing director that became public a few weeks ago?

Yes and no. The failure to Dr. Ocak, lawyer at Ver.di, to which you obviously refer, and the subsequent events were the basis of our decision.

However, the racist remarks were not made by a managing director of the two dealerships or a simple employee, but by their owner. The owner holds 95% of the shares via a holding company and is therefore the sole ultimate decision-maker in both companies. Following his first statement, the owner once again behaved completely inappropriately towards Dr. Ocak by threatening him. For this reason alone, this was not just a „one-off“ derailment and unfortunately not an isolated incident.

The considerable negative response in the press and on social networks has hit us with full force and caused considerable damage to the Harley-Davidson brand.

If so, why, after the dismissal of the responsible managing director, were both authorized dealers and thus also the employees and staff dismissed? Were the consequences that Harley Davidson Cologne had not pulled far enough?

Why was the contract partner in Bonn also terminated?

As already explained, the presentation is unfortunately not correct, as the person responsible is still the owner of both companies (dealerships in Cologne and Bonn), so that further cooperation does not appear possible for Harley-Davidson. The owner's behavior has repeatedly contradicted the values of the brand to such an extent that we could only terminate the contractual relationship with his company. We would like to reiterate that there is no place for racism, hatred or intolerance in the Harley-Davidson community or anywhere else.

We deeply regret that the employees are now also affected by the owner's repeated misconduct, which is why we did not take this decision lightly. We are now working hard to find a successor solution that is satisfactory for both employees and customers and are optimistic that we will achieve this.

However, we would also like to take this opportunity to point out that these incidents have led to completely inappropriate hostility towards the completely uninvolved employees of the companies by third parties. Such behavior also contradicts our values and is completely unacceptable.

Text: Harley-Davidson 09.01.2022