Dealer-Side Add-On and Fee Compliance After the 2026 Orders: Rebuilding the Consent File and Answering Regulators

Alex Kurkin, Partner | Kurkin Forehand Brandes LLP

Alex Kurkin advises auto dealerships and other businesses in tightly regulated industries on complex contracts, real estate, and commercial litigation. He reviews dealers’ customer sales and lease agreements to head off legal challenges, and he represents clients both when they are sued and when litigation on their behalf becomes unavoidable. He practices from Kurkin Forehand Brandes LLP’s Aventura, Florida office.

• Education & Credentials

He earned his J.D. from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 1991 and his bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Florida in 1989. He was admitted to The Florida Bar in 1991.

• Recognition & Leadership

He serves as legal counsel to the Florida Automobile Dealers Association and sits on the board of the Miami Mayor’s International Council. He was named to the South Florida Legal Guide’s Top Lawyers (2010–2011) and Florida Trend’s Legal Elite (2008).

• Professional Involvement

He is a member of The Florida Bar and an affiliate member of the Florida Automobile Dealers Association. He performs pro bono work through the Miami-Dade Bar Association’s “Put Something Back” program, is a founding member and board member of the Miami Beach Health Foundation, and coaches’ youth football with Miami-Dade Xtreme in the Orange Bowl Youth Football Alliance.

• Experience

Over more than three decades of practice, he has counseled dealerships on the terms of their customer sales and lease agreements and defended them when those agreements are challenged. His practice spans contract law, commercial real estate, and commercial litigation.

Christopher J. Capurso, Counsel | Troutman Pepper Locke

Christopher J. Capurso counsel’s clients in the automotive retail and auto finance industries on federal and state consumer financial services law. From Troutman Pepper Locke’s Richmond office, he advises motor vehicle dealers, banks, captives, and sales finance companies on building and maintaining vehicle financing and leasing programs, and he co-hosts Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast.

• Education & Credentials

He earned his J.D. from William & Mary Law School in 2016, where he was senior articles editor of the William & Mary Business Law Review, and his M.B.A. from the College of William & Mary’s Raymond A. Mason School of Business the same year. He also holds a B.M., summa cum laude, from the State University of New York at Potsdam Crane School of Music (2012). He is admitted in Virginia.

• Recognition & Leadership

Best Lawyers in America has named him one of its “Ones to Watch” for Banking and Finance Law (2024–2027) and for Litigation – Banking and Finance (2026–2027), and he received a 2026 JD Supra Readers’ Choice Award in Transportation. He serves as vice chair of the Personal Property Financing Subcommittee of the American Bar Association Business Law Section’s Consumer Financial Services Committee.

• Professional Involvement

He speaks often on dealer advertising and auto finance enforcement, including “FTC & Dealer Advertising Updates: Key Legal and Compliance Risks” at the Association of Consumer Vehicle Lessors’ 2026 Annual Conference, and on programs for the ABA Business Law Section, the Online Lenders Alliance, and the National Consumer Reporting Association. On Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast, he has covered the FTC’s dealer warning letters, the FTC and Connecticut’s joint junk-fee action, and California’s CARS Act, and he co-authored a 2026 inside ARM article on a New York Attorney General settlement over dealer fees and add-on products. He also sits on the SUNY Potsdam Business Administration Advisory Council.

• Experience

He has advised clients in regulatory examinations involving ancillary products in vehicle finance transactions, helped develop a subscription-based vehicle service contract program, and served a part-time secondment as corporate counsel to the nation’s largest used motor vehicle retailer. He regularly counsel’s banks, credit unions, installment lenders, sales finance companies, and motor vehicle dealers on Virginia law. His broader practice covers compliance under the Truth in Lending Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and E-SIGN for point-of-sale, fintech, and other consumer credit programs.

SESSION 1 – Motor Vehicle Dealer Advertising and Add-On Product Requirements: Creating a Compliant Process from Start to Finish | Christopher J. Capurso | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

You would teach dealer-side counsel how to rebuild a dealer’s add-on and fee consent file from the first written pencil through the retail installment contract, using the CARS Act, the Greenway and Chase Nissan orders and the DARCARS assurance. The hour covers fee-line classification, an annotated election form, menu and e-contracting decline logs, the lender-required rule and attach-rate triggers. Your experience drafting F&I menus and RIC forms and finding the configuration errors that produce a bad record, is what attendees cannot get elsewhere.

BREAK | 1:00pm – 1:10pm

SESSION 2 – Answering an FTC Warning Letter or AG Investigation Over Dealer Add-Ons and Fees | Alex Kurkin | 1:10pm – 2:10pm

You would teach dealer-side counsel how to take a dealer group from an FTC warning letter or state AG demand to a resolution it can live with. The hour covers triage, privileged look-back sampling, the decision to refund early, putting a credible cure on the record, and which order terms from Lindsay, Greenway, Chase Nissan and DARCARS still move. This profile fits a dealer regulatory defense attorney who has personally run these investigations and can say what staff pulled first and which responses close matters.