TORONTO -

A full day has not even passed since the announcement of AutoCheck’s return, and Warren Barnard has already been fielding calls expressing words of encouragement.

Amid a disagreement that dates back to June, the Used Car Dealers Association of Ontario was able to come to a temporary accord about a week ago with the Insurance Bureau of Canada that allows the organization to regain access to the data it uses in AutoCheck vehicle history reports.

On Thursday afternoon, the Competition Tribunal approved the agreement, and with that green light, UCDA was able to re-launch AutoCheck yesterday.

As reported last month in Auto Remarketing Canada, the situation began when UCDA claimed that IBC “terminated” its access to the information it uses for the AutoCheck reports.

UCDA initiated legal action by approaching the Competition Tribunal and requesting permission to leave the Tribunal. Doing so would give UCDA the green light to file an application against the bureau.

UCDA had requested permission to file under sections 75 and 76 of the Competition Act. However, the tribunal gave approval for just section 75, referred to as “Refusal to Deal.” It rejected the part dealing with section 76, which has to do with pricing.

The Tribunal told the two parties, in the meantime, to try and come to a temporary agreement that would give UCDA temporary access to the claims data while they wait for the Tribunal’s final decision.

As such, that’s the agreement UCDA and IBC made roughly a week ago.

“I’ve had some calls. I just took one a few minutes ago, in fact, by a member who was very happy and appreciated our efforts in getting this data back and essentially wished us luck in going forward,” Barnard, UCDA’s legal services director, told Auto Remarketing Canada this morning.

“So, the members are happy because the price of the AutoCheck is considerably less than other searches, other accident reports that are out there,” he continued. “So it is very helpful to the members to have that.”

As of press time, IBC had yet responded to Auto Remarketing Canada’s request for comment.

Barnard went on to explain what exactly the agreement means.

“The crux of the agreement is simply that they’ve agreed to restore our access to the data until the matter is finally disposed of, which in plainer English means until the matter is either heard at the Tribunal and a decision is reach by the Tribunal or we resolve it in some other fashion by some kind of a settlement,” he said.

“So, we’re of course hopeful that we can still resolve the matter by way of settlement discussions and our lawyers are talking to IBC’s lawyers to try to do that. But the application is still filed with the Tribunal. We don’t have a hearing date, as of yet. But that ultimately would be what will happen: the matter would be heard at the Tribunal, and they’d reach a decision which would ultimately finalize the matter,” Barnard added.

“So hopefully we’ll be able to reach a permanent settlement with IBC and avoid the need to have to go further with the Tribunal hearing,” he concluded.