How a Dealer of the Year became embroiled in a federal legal battle over $7.3 million in PPP loans.
The showroom doors were locked. The service bays were silent. Across America, independent dealers watched decades of hard work grind to a halt almost overnight. It was April 2020, and no one knew how long the pandemic would last. Customers disappeared, vehicle sales stalled and service traffic slowed to a trickle, but payroll still arrived every Friday.
For Mary Catherine "Kitty" Van Bortel, founder of the Van Bortel Automotive Group and one of the most recognizable dealer principals in the country, the crisis wasn't simply about surviving an unprecedented business shutdown. It was about protecting the people who had helped build her company. Like thousands of business owners, Van Bortel turned to the federal government's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), created under the CARES Act to help employers continue paying workers during the COVID-19 shutdowns. The loans were approved, employees continued receiving paychecks and, after the program's requirements were met, the loans were ultimately forgiven.
For most businesses, that marked the end of the story. For Kitty Van Bortel, it was only the beginning.
A Reputation Built Over Decades
Few names are more recognizable in automotive retail than Kitty Van Bortel. Over nearly four decades, she built one of Western New York's most successful dealership groups while earning a reputation for customer service, community involvement and doing business differently. Her "Kindness Comes Standard" philosophy became more than a marketing slogan; it became part of the identity of her dealerships. In 2016, she was recognized nationally as the TIME Dealer of the Year, one of the industry's highest honors.
That history is part of what makes the current legal battle notable. The case involves not an unknown business, but a dealer principal whose career and public reputation were established long before the PPP program existed.
In July 2026, a federal judge unsealed a 19-page whistleblower complaint alleging that Van Bortel Automotive Group and related entities improperly obtained and sought forgiveness for approximately $7.3 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans.
Van Bortel has denied the allegations, and the case remains before the court. No findings have been made on the merits of the claims. In a July 10 response to the newly unsealed complaint, Van Bortel told the Democrat and Chronicle that she was “beside myself” and said, “I would NEVER do anything fraudulent.” She characterized the complaint as a “scam” and said her attorneys were looking into it.
For independent dealers, however, the case raises a question that reaches well beyond Van Bortel's dealerships: How can loans that were approved, funded and ultimately forgiven become the subject of a federal fraud case six years later?
The answer lies in one of the least understood aspects of the pandemic relief program: the rules governing business affiliation and employee counts, and the legal mechanisms that can allow those questions to be revisited long after emergency funds were distributed.
When Congress created the PPP program during the frantic early days of the pandemic, the priority was straightforward: get money into the hands of employers quickly enough to prevent mass layoffs and keep workers connected to their jobs. The rules governing eligibility, however, were considerably more complicated.
For dealership groups operating multiple rooftops, one of the most important—and potentially confusing—issues involved SBA affiliation rules and how employee counts were calculated. To many dealer principals, separately incorporated dealerships with different franchises, payrolls and state dealer licenses naturally felt like separate businesses. Federal regulations can view those same entities differently.
When companies are under common ownership or control, SBA affiliation rules may require employees across multiple entities to be counted together when determining eligibility for certain government programs. The whistleblower complaint alleges that those rules should have applied to the Van Bortel dealership group. Van Bortel disputes those allegations, and that question will ultimately be decided through the legal process.
That distinction is important because PPP was designed to move unusually fast. Businesses were making decisions in an environment in which the rules were changing, guidance was evolving and the economic consequences of getting help—or not getting it—could be immediate. What seemed like a straightforward decision in 2020 can look considerably different when examined years later through court filings and legal arguments.
The case also raises a question about who is pursuing the allegations.
The plaintiff is not the Small Business Administration, nor is it the Department of Justice. Instead, the lawsuit was filed by PPP Eligibility Experts LLC, a California company acting as a whistleblower under the federal False Claims Act. Public court records show the company has filed similar litigation involving other businesses, including at least one major automotive dealership group.
Under the False Claims Act, private parties—known legally as relators—may file lawsuits on behalf of the federal government alleging fraud involving taxpayer funds. If a case is successful, the relator may be entitled to a percentage of the government's recovery.
The law itself is more than 150 years old and has long been used to uncover fraud involving government contracts and healthcare programs. In the years following the pandemic, however, the False Claims Act has increasingly become a mechanism for examining whether businesses properly qualified for emergency PPP funding.
For many business owners, that possibility was not part of the original equation. The assumption was that once a loan had been reviewed, approved and eventually forgiven, the matter was closed. The Van Bortel case illustrates that, at least in some circumstances, questions surrounding PPP eligibility can remain alive years after the pandemic has faded from the headlines.
The Van Bortel case is also part of a larger wave of scrutiny surrounding PPP loans and automotive dealership groups.
Other dealership organizations have already faced similar allegations. In February 2026, Garber Management Group, which oversees the Garber Automotive Group's dealerships in the Saginaw, Michigan, area, agreed to pay $1.51 million to resolve allegations that it improperly obtained PPP funding. Two months later, Jeff Wyler Automotive Family, which operates dealerships across Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, agreed to pay approximately $2.1 million to resolve allegations involving the eligibility of one of its management companies for PPP funds.
Both cases centered, at least in part, on the complicated question of how affiliated businesses and their employees should have been counted under Small Business Administration rules. The settlements did not constitute findings of wrongdoing, and the allegations were not judicial determinations of liability.
The significance for dealers is not simply the dollar amounts. It is the fact that questions surrounding PPP eligibility are still being pursued years after the loans were issued and, in many cases, forgiven. For dealership groups with multiple rooftops, separate corporations and common ownership, the distinction between what looks like an individual business and what federal regulations consider an affiliated group can become critical.
That is what makes the Van Bortel case particularly relevant to the broader automotive retail community. The issue is no longer simply what happened in 2020. It is how decisions made during an unprecedented emergency are being examined six years later.
For Van Bortel, the legal questions are now being addressed through the federal court system. For other dealers, the case offers a reason to pay closer attention to the rules that governed PPP eligibility and to the possibility that questions surrounding those decisions can resurface years later.
The outcome remains unresolved. The allegations have not been proven, and Van Bortel has denied them. What happens next will depend on the court proceedings and the evidence presented by both sides.
For dealership groups that navigated the same PPP rules during the pandemic, the case is one worth watching.
