Richard,

We hadn't intended to post publicly, out of fairness to Bob who is not here to defend himself right now. But since there is a lot of interest, we'll make a brief statement. We made the decision -- by ourselves, with no outside influence -- to deactivate Bob's membership for the time-being, as what he has admitted doing violates several points of our membership agreement, namely:

• Uphold the highest standards of professionalism, competence, and integrity. • Maintain quality through the use of proper tools, equipment, parts and procedures. • Support and promote the mission and goals of the iATN.

Our mission states: "To promote the continued growth, success and image of the automotive service professional by providing a forum for the exchange of knowledge and the promotion of education, professionalism, and integrity."

Here are our goals, mission and member agreement: http://www.iatn.net/mission-and-goals

We've seen more about the case than what has been linked to from this discussion, including the victim impact statement from Daimler AG, where it definitely did not read to us as though they were OK with what was going on. If someone were to provide us with some proof that they or MB were actually OK with what was going on, then I'm sure that would change our opinion of the case. As far as we've seen, this is conjecture and based on hearsay.

Aside from this one serious incident, Bob has been a great contributor to iATN and we would hope to see him back on the network in the future, if he desires it. However, the incident was very serious. We feel it's only appropriate that violation of our membership agreement should have consequences; otherwise, what's the point of having it?

This is not the first time we've removed an account due to a legal violation that we feel violates our membership agreement. The only reason it's the first one you've heard of is because of the rest of what Bob has provided to the industry over the years, and that's why he'll eventually be invited back onto iATN in the future.

Regards,

Scott Brown
Administrator
iATN
Brea, California, USA