“Why are we passing legislation that is favoring one firm over 3,000 licensed auctioneers in the state of Ohio?” asked Jeff Bub, of Jeff Bub Auctions in Brunswick.
“We want it off the books so we can continue doing what we have been legally able to do all of our auctioneering life,” said Bub, who has held an auction license since 1984.
Bub is upset about an amendment that creates a new, separate license he says is for auctions of construction equipment. The license requires that the firm must be on more than 90 acres containing an operating facility that is at least 60,000 square feet and grosses more than $1 million a year in Ohio auctions.
The only firm that can meet those requirements is Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers east of Springfield. Ritchie Bros., based in Vancouver, Canada, is the world’s largest industrial auctioneer with more than 110 locations. Its 2010 auctions worldwide grossed more than $3.3 billion.
The amendment creating the new license was tucked into the transportation bill by state Rep. Ross McGregor and state Sen. Chris Widener, both Springfield Republicans. Gov. John Kasich signed the $6.8 billion transportation bill on March 30.
McGregor said he and Widener have worked on fixing Ohio law for several years to allow Ritchie Bros. to auction both large construction equipment and titled motor vehicles, which is why they created the new license.
It only applies to companies that do both auctions, McGregor said, and was never intended to stop other companies from auctioning construction equipment.
“We are not preventing anyone from doing what they had been doing before the transportation budget ... This was designed to handle the unique situation around Ritchie Bros. It was never done with the intention of creating a monopoly,” he said.
Widener has inserted language into the state’s operating budget that’s in conference committee to clarify the issue, McGregor said, and he’s had no indications that it won’t stay in the bill.
Bub questioned whether the lawmakers had stuck the provision in the transportation bill to give an advantage to an auction house in their backyard. A preliminary search of recent campaign finance records revealed no contributions to the lawmakers tied to Ritchie.
McGregor didn’t apologize for trying to fix a problem faced by a business in his district. “That’s what legislators do,” he said.
A spokesman at Ritchie Bros. said the company isn’t trying to hurt smaller auctioneers. “Ritchie Bros. has been operating in Ohio since 1989. We have no intention of monopolizing any part of the auction business,” said Gene Pierce, a consultant hired by Ritchie Bros. “We believe in open competition. We have no problem with the amendment currently being drafted to correct this technical gray area.”
Pierce said the amendment was drafted by McGregor and Widener with the help of the Ohio Automobile Dealers Association. The OADA was upset that Ritchie routinely sells passenger vehicles, mainly pickup trucks, through consignment and never actually takes title of the vehicle.
Rather than change its business practices or move its operation out of state, Pierce said, the amendment was intended to make the practice of consignment exclusive to Ritchie Bros. But the actual amendment states something more.
Ritchie Bros. had threatened to relocate out of state if it could not auction off vehicles along with construction equipment, said Jason Mauk, the Ohio Senate Republican spokesman. Mauk said the OADA compromised by agreeing to allow Ritchie Bros. to sell vehicles as long as other Ohio auctioneers could not begin doing the same. To create that situation, the new construction license tailored to Ritchie Bros. was created, which led to the issue with auctioneers.
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