Iran's Administrative Court Annuls Competition Council's Car Down-Payment Rule; Saipa and Iran Khodro Give Conflicting Codal Disclosures

The General Board of Iran's Administrative Court of Justice annulled Competition Council Resolution No. 473 and its later amendments on Wednesday, August 19, 2026 (28 Mordad 1405). The resolution had set how car buyers' down payments are calculated in pre-sale schemes. According to a disclosure Saipa filed on Codal, Iran's official corporate disclosure system, on August 22, the annulment applies retroactively, from the date the resolution was originally approved. But while Saipa said it would announce the exact financial impact later, Iran Khodro said the same day the ruling has no revenue effect on the company at all.

Background

Competition Council Resolution 473, known in the auto industry as the "inflation-share resolution," set how customer down payments are calculated in pre-sale schemes for domestically produced cars. According to Competition Council spokesperson Sepehr Dadjooy Tavakoli, speaking the day of the annulment, the resolution treated the amount a buyer paid at registration as a fixed share of the car's official price on that day, and that portion was shielded from any price increase between registration and delivery. Dadjooy Tavakoli, quoted by Mehr News Agency, said the case reached the Administrative Court of Justice at the carmakers' own request; the Competition Council defended its resolution and won at first instance, but the Court's General Board ultimately sided with the carmakers and annulled a resolution he described as one that "guaranteed the consumer's right against possible price increases."

The Council had already narrowed this protection several times in recent months: in Resolution 836 of April 28, 2026, it said Resolution 473 applies only to the pre-sale of domestically produced cars, not assembled imports, and this summer, as carmakers shifted a large share of sales from classic "pre-sale" contracts to a "production-partnership" format, the Council repeatedly stressed that Resolution 473 covers only pre-sale contracts, not production-partnership ones, which never carried the same price protection.

The Numbers

Dadjooy Tavakoli explained the annulled mechanism with an official example: if a car's price at registration was 1 million tomans and the buyer paid 500,000 tomans (50 percent) as a down payment, that 50 percent was locked in as a fixed share of the car. If the price rose to 2 million tomans by delivery, the buyer only owed the difference on the remaining half, another 1 million tomans, and took delivery for a total of 1.5 million tomans rather than the full 2 million. According to Mehr News Agency (via Khabaronline), with the resolution annulled, a consumer must now pay the car's full delivery-day price in both the pre-sale and production-partnership formats; the fixed share that used to shield a pre-sale buyer from half of any price increase no longer applies.

In its August 22, 2026 Codal disclosure, Saipa (ticker SIPA) said the annulment of Resolution 473 takes effect from the date it was originally approved, and that the final rial figure for the financial impact will be announced via Codal once the company estimates and calculates the "realized participation profit" owed to customers; Saipa has not yet published an exact figure. The same day, Iran Khodro (ticker IKCO) said in a separate disclosure that the outstanding balance of its current sales contracts, covering production-partnership pre-sales, immediate sales and special sales, is not eligible for the discount created by Resolution 473, so the annulment will have no revenue effect on the company.

Drivers

The two carmakers' different responses trace directly to a shift both made in their contract formats over recent months. Between July 26 and July 31, 2026, the Competition Council issued three separate notices stressing that "production-partnership" contracts, in which the buyer shares in the profit and loss of the production process and the final price is only fixed at delivery, are legal but do not carry Resolution 473's price protection. According to its own disclosure, Iran Khodro now runs most of its current sales through this production-partnership and instant-sale format, which is why the annulment of a resolution that never applied to those contracts changes nothing in its financial obligations. Saipa, by contrast, still has a portion of its contracts in the classic pre-sale format that Resolution 473 covered, which is why it must recalculate and disclose the realized participation profit owed to those customers.

Both carmakers are reporting this change while running losses, according to Sahmino's reading of their own Codal filings. Iran Khodro's trailing twelve-month net loss, per its unaudited interim filing for the three months to June 21, 2026 (31 Khordad 1405), uploaded to Codal on July 22, 2026, was about 126,273 billion rials (roughly 12.6 trillion tomans), and the stock's P/E ratio is accordingly negative, at -14.82. Saipa's audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended March 20, 2026 (29 Esfand 1404) showed a net loss of about 249,951 billion rials (roughly 25 trillion tomans), and the stock's P/E ratio stands at -4.43.

Outlook

This section is analytical judgment, not a settled report. The murkiest point in this story is the exact rial figure for Saipa's financial impact, which the company itself has not yet disclosed; that figure's publication on Codal will be the first clear signal of how much this annulment actually costs, or saves, either side. Separately, since the Competition Council has said it will comply with the court's ruling, it may propose a replacement mechanism for calculating car down payments in the coming months; no such draft has been published as of this writing.

Bottom Line

By annulling Competition Council Resolution 473, at the carmakers' own request and retroactively to the date it was first approved, Iran's Administrative Court of Justice removed a mechanism that had shielded pre-sale car buyers from part of any price increase between registration and delivery. The effect is not uniform: Iran Khodro says most of its current sales already sit outside that protection in the production-partnership format, so it expects no revenue effect, while Saipa has yet to disclose the exact financial impact on its pre-sale customers and must publish that figure via Codal.

What to Watch

Three things are worth tracking in the coming days and weeks: first, the exact financial-impact figure Saipa is required to disclose on Codal; second, any replacement resolution the Competition Council or National Competition Centre proposes for calculating car down payments; and third, complaints or reactions from buyers who registered under Resolution 473 and are now facing the new calculation basis.