Eastern Western Refuses to Reveal Its GAP Commission – Then Tries to Shut the FOS Door

Eastern Western Motor Group (Eastern Western) has been asked a straightforward question: how much commission did it, and others within the distribution chain, receive as a result of selling a GAP insurance policy. Rather than disclose the figures, the dealership has instructed MILS Legal to defend its refusal to disclose the facts. We have now reported that conduct to the FCA.

There is a simple way for Eastern Western to demonstrate that its GAP insurance arrangements were fair.

It could disclose the facts.

It could identify the businesses that received money from the sale, state the amount of commission and other remuneration paid through the distribution chain, and explain how much of the customer’s premium was retained by each party.

Instead, Eastern Western has chosen secrecy.

On 30th July 2026, we placed the dealership on formal notice that the commission amount and remuneration chain were not peripheral details. They were the salient facts at the centre of a complaint.

We explained that a customer cannot properly understand the extent of any unfairness, the nature of the financial incentive or the true economics of the transaction while those figures remain concealed. We gave Eastern Western an opportunity to disclose the information voluntarily and to explain what remedial action it would take in complaints affected by the same approach.

Its response was not transparency.

It was a four-page refusal delivered through MILS Legal Ltd.

MILS puts the refusal in black and white

MILS, acting for Eastern Holdings Limited, stated:

“It is under no obligation to disclose the quantum of commission or the composition of the remuneration chain, and it declines to do so.”

There is no ambiguity in that sentence.

Eastern Western is not saying that the figures have been lost, nor that the records no longer exist. It is not saying that the information cannot be obtained from the insurer, administrator or another party within the distribution chain.

It is saying that it will not disclose the figures.

Yet the same letter says that, should the FCA examine the matter, Eastern Western will cooperate and place the whole file before the regulator, stating it has nothing to conceal in that regard.

It therefore says it is prepared to place the whole file before the FCA, while expressly declining to disclose the commission quantum or remuneration chain to the consumer.

The contrast is impossible to ignore.

Eastern Western says it has nothing to conceal, while simultaneously refusing to reveal the central financial facts to the customer whose money paid for the product.

It is apparently willing to show the file to the FCA. It would be obliged to provide relevant information to the Financial Ombudsman Service during a valid investigation. But it refuses to provide the same information to the consumer at the complaint-handling stage.

That is the conduct now under scrutiny.

This is an attempt to weaponise FOS

The Financial Ombudsman Service is supposed to provide independent dispute resolution. It does not operate as a compulsory information-retrieval service simply because a regulated business refuses to tell its customer the facts.

Eastern Western’s position creates an extraordinary and deeply unfair sequence.

First, the dealership withholds the commission amount and remuneration chain.

It then seeks to reject a complaint without allowing the consumer to see those figures.

Consumers are effectively forced towards FOS to obtain information that should have been addressed during the original complaint.

That is, in our opinion, a clear weaponisation of FOS.

The dealership seeks to make the Ombudsman the only realistic gateway through which a consumer might obtain the salient evidence, while it also seeks to lock that gateway on an argument of limitation.

It cannot reasonably withhold the information at first instance and then rely upon procedure to prevent those facts from ever being examined independently.

It cannot use its own refusal to disclose information as both a shield against the complaint and a barrier to escalation.

Four pages of legal argument but still no figures

MILS devotes much of its response to arguments about the rules that applied at the point of sale, the distinction between commercial and retail customers, the timing of the Consumer Duty, motor finance judgments and the scope of the FCA’s motor finance redress arrangements.

Those arguments do not answer the central complaint-handling question.

How can a consumer be satisfied that a business has fairly assessed and explained a complaint response about undisclosed commission while refusing to disclose the commission?

This is not merely a debate about whether a cash commission figure had to be volunteered at the showroom in 2020. It concerns what Eastern Western is doing now, after receiving a complaint specifically alleging unfairness arising from undisclosed remuneration.

DISP 1.4.1R requires a firm receiving a complaint to investigate it competently, diligently and impartially, assess it fairly while taking all relevant factors into account, and explain its decision in a way that is fair, clear and not misleading.

We do not believe a complaint about undisclosed commission can be transparently or meaningfully explained while the amount of that commission and the identities of its recipients are deliberately withheld.

A lengthy legal letter cannot make the missing facts disappear.

It cannot transform non-disclosure into transparency.

Most importantly, it still does not tell the customer where the money went.

The FCA has now been notified

Eastern Western’s conduct, together with the response issued
by MILS, has now been reported to the Financial Conduct Authority.

We have provided the regulator with the dealership’s position in its own words.

Prominent Members of Parliament have also been informed.

The FCA can see that this is not a misunderstanding, an administrative delay or an isolated failure to locate a document.

It is an express refusal.

We fully expect the FCA to intervene.

The FCA must establish how many consumers have been denied these figures, whether the information was held internally, if a refusal policy was approved and whether respondent complaint outcomes would have been different had consumers been allowed to see the complete financial picture.

This is a systems-and-controls issue.

It is a complaint-handling issue.

It is a transparency issue.

It is a deliberate refusal to disclose the very figures that sit at the centre of the complaint.

The facts will be compelled if necessary

Eastern Western appears to believe that saying “no” repeatedly will bring the matter to an end.

It will not.

If required, we will pursue any appropriate pre-action disclosure remedy available.

That may include documentation identifying the commission amount, the complete remuneration chain, payments between the dealership and other distributors, relevant agreements, invoices, accounting records and communications concerning the sale.

Should proceedings become necessary, Eastern Western will not control the disclosure process indefinitely. The court can determine what documents must be produced and what evidence must be placed before it.

The salient facts therefore have two possible routes into the open.

Eastern Western can disclose them voluntarily now, or it can face an application intended to compel disclosure.

What it cannot do is assume that the figures will remain secret forever.

Why is Eastern Western so determined to withhold the figures?

If the commission figures support Eastern Western’s position, why not disclose them?

If the remuneration was modest, proportionate and consistent with fair value, why prevent the customer from seeing it?

If the distribution chain was entirely unremarkable, why refuse to identify the parties within it?

If there is genuinely nothing to conceal, why spend four pages constructing reasons not to reveal the numbers?

We do not know the complete figures, yet.

Eastern Western has them, or should be capable of obtaining them, but it refuses to provide them.

Is it possible that the figures are not ones the dealership wants subjected to public, regulatory or judicial scrutiny?

Eastern Western can disprove that inference immediately.

It can publish the figures.

Legal warnings will not make the questions disappear

We’ve witnessed aggressive defensive tactics before, during the PPI scandal and the motor finance commission scandal.

We have witnessed similar disputes over disclosure during previous large-scale consumer redress issues, including PPI and motor finance commission complaints.

The lesson from those disputes is simple… eventually disclosure isn’t a choice.

The facts will emerge.

Commission does not cease to exist because a dealership refuses to state the amount.

A remuneration chain does not disappear because a solicitor argues that the consumer is not entitled to see it.

The underlying documents do not become irrelevant because the business declares a complaint as closed.

Eastern Western can continue to refuse voluntary disclosure.

But it will not keep the salient facts secret forever.

The figures will either be disclosed voluntarily, obtained through regulatory scrutiny or pursued through the courts.

The longer Eastern Western resists transparency, the more pressing the question becomes:

What, exactly, does it not want consumers to see?

We will continue to pursue the evidence, and we will receive the evidence.

We will continue to challenge the attempted weaponisation of the Financial Ombudsman Service.

And we will not allow procedural arguments, legal warnings or deliberate opacity to bury the facts.

Justice will prevail.