“Voir Dire”

 

Pronounced “vwah deer.”

 

It’s a French legal term which means “to speak the truth.”

 

The term is most commonly used during a jury selection process where the attorneys question potential panelists about their prejudices or biases and their ability to be fair and especially impartial.

 

The real truth here is it is very difficult to be neutral, fair, and objective.

 

Said another way, it’s easy to convince yourself that you are impartial and you’re really not.  It’s a similar concept to “confirmation bias.”  Interestingly, the Googles tell us “understanding…common biases is the first step toward mitigating …negative impacts.”   (You know, I’m all about mitigating negative impacts.)   Confirmation bias is giving greater weight to information that confirms your existing beliefs and ignoring other data or evidence which may challenge that belief.  Often, the result is poor because you’re not able to be objective.

 

In a courtroom, voir dire is meant to expose bias before it matters. In a dealership, bias often goes unexamined until it becomes evidence.

 

It’s worth saying again -it’s very difficult to be unbiased.

 

Daily Operations At Auto Dealerships

 

Let’s bring this back to daily operations at a dealership.  Have you asked yourself if your daily tasks, chores, and responsibilities are complaint and within acceptable tolerances?  Employees often do not ask that question of themselves until someone else is asking  them for important answers.

 

Are you able to be open minded and even handed in your questioning yourself?  Can you accept the truths before you?    Or do you have a bias such that you may not understand the exact situation you’re in?

 

Few situations start with bad people waking up intending to break the law. They start with reasonable people making reasonable exceptions — usually in the name of efficiency, production, or survival.

 

Here’s why I’m asking these questions.  More and more, government regulators are holding owners, executives, or employees personally liable for the company’s actions.  Examples follow.

 

Current Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Actions

 

In December, 2024, James Douvas, Former VP of U.S. operations for Leader Automotive, was charged personally by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Attorney General of Illinois with overseeing unlawful bait and switch advertising violations.  Leader settled all allegations for $20 million.[1]

 

As of the writing of this article, the FTC still has an open claim of $216 million with James Douvas.

 

In October, 2023, the General Manager, Daniel Towne and Rhinelander Auto Center were both prosecuted by the FTC and the State of Wisconsin for deceiving consumers by “tacking hundreds or even thousands of dollars in illegal junk fees and for discriminating against American Indian customers by charging them higher financing costs and fees.[2]

 

And The Federal Bureau of Investigation…

 

In December, 2025, the CEO, Daniel Chu, the COO, David Goodgame, and the CFO, Jerome Kollar were all indicted by the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, in cooperation with the FBI, in the failure of Tricolor Holdings, LLC for:

 

  • defrauding multiple banks and other private credit providers
  • bank fraud
  • wire fraud in connection with schemes to fraudulently double-pledge collateral to multiple lenders and manipulating the characteristics of that collateral to make ineligible, near-worthless assets appear to meet lender requirements (pledging $2.2 billion of collateral when they had $1.4 billion in assets)[3]

 

If convicted, the charges against the three (3) could result in jail time starting at ten (10) years and up to life in prison.

 

In August, 2025, a jury convicted Mark Janbakhsh, CEO & Owner of Auto Masters for Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud, Bank Fraud, Making False Statements to a Bank, Bankruptcy Fraud, and Making a False Statement Under Oath. [4]  According to the evidence, Janbakhsh conspired with his brother, Ron Janbakhsh, and others in the company to submit false documentation to Capital One to artificially inflate the value of the company’s collateral which would allow Janbakhsh to draw on lines of credit he was otherwise not entitled to take. During the course of the scheme, Auto Masters fraudulently obtained approximately $26.4 million that it was not entitled to receive.[5]

 

Once bank auditors began to investigate financial discrepancies in Auto Masters’ submissions, the evidence showed that Janbakhsh directed company employees to delete data, emails, and other company information that would have shown his fraudulent dealings. Auto Masters declared bankruptcy in 2017 and, according to the evidence at trial, Janbakhsh lied about the fraud while under oath during the bankruptcy proceedings.[6]

 

He faces up to thirty (30) years in prison.

 

In every one of these cases, the government didn’t argue that the executive “should have known.” They argued that the executive did know  or chose not to look. What we are talking about is all about self-responsibility, no matter your job title.

 

There are plenty more examples and the list isn’t slowing down.

 

Think these sound extreme?  Doesn’t sound like anything you’re familiar with?  Good.

 

Big problems start really, really small.  A mistruth here or there…  Not being completely candid with a customer or your boss about any particular situation.

 

Voir dire isn’t about catching someone in a lie.  It’s about creating a moment where the truth has a chance to surface before it’s too late.

 

Compliance failures don’t begin as scandals.  They begin as exceptions. A fee that isn’t fully explained. A number that gets rounded. A process that works “most of the time.”

 

Regulators

 

The question isn’t whether regulators will ask hard questions.  They will.

 

The real question is whether you’ve already asked them of yourself — honestly, completely, and without defensiveness. Because when accountability finally shows up, it rarely starts with the company. It starts with the person who thought they were being reasonable.

 

Voir dire is what happens when someone else examines your decisions for bias, intent, and truth.

 

The safest position isn’t believing you’re compliant.  It’s constantly proving that you are — to yourself first.

 

 

 

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/12/ftc-illinois-take-action-against-leader-automotive-group-overcharging-deceiving-consumers-through#:~:text=A%20group%20of%2010%20car,Commission%20and%20state%20of%20Illinois

[2] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/10/ftc-wisconsin-take-action-against-rhinelander-auto-center-illegally-discriminating-against-american#:~:text=The%20defendants%20have%20agreed%20to,used%20for%20refunds%20to%20consumers

[3] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ceo-cfo-coo-charged-connection-billion-dollar-collapse-tricolor-auto

[4] https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdtn/pr/former-nashville-auto-dealer-convicted-federal-fraud-charges

[5] https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdtn/pr/former-nashville-auto-dealer-convicted-federal-fraud-charges

[6] https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdtn/pr/former-nashville-auto-dealer-convicted-federal-fraud-charges