Think back, if you will, to July of 2024. That's when Japan's Federal Trade Commission first raided Harley-Davidson Japan's offices and placed the subsidiary of the American company under formal investigation.
At issue: Allegations of excessive quotas placed on dealerships under contract to Harley Japan, which had been in place since around 2020. According to those allegations, dealers were told that if they did not meet the ever-increasing sales quotas, they could lose their contracts and face non-renewal in the future.
This reportedly led to a domino effect, whereby dealers would have no choice but to purchase bikes (even bikes they didn't want, and that wouldn't necessarily sell well in their local market) themselves in order to meet the increasingly onerous quotas. Japanese law then designated such bikes as "unused, registered" motorcycles, which meant they lost value. So, even if the dealers went on to sell those bikes to customers later on, they often did so at a loss.
