A federal judge has denied a request from Holley Performance Products to alter a $2 million-plus judgment against the company after it was found to have violated a prior settlement with a Michigan auto parts manufacturer, though Holley is appealing the decision.

U.S. District Judge David Hale for the Western District of Kentucky issued an order on March 24 denying a request from Bowling Green auto parts maker Holley to alter a 2024 judgment ordering it to disgorge to Specialty Auto Parts USA $2,028,264.19 in profits it netted from the sales of Ultra Aluminum HP Carburetors.

The parts were determined by the federal courts to be a breach of a prior settlement agreement between Holley and Specialty Auto Parts USA, a competing auto parts company based in Michigan.

Attorney Josh Dalton, representing Holley, did not return an email message seeking comment.

The two companies have been engaged in a series of legal disputes with one another dating back to 2000.

In 2017, Specialty sued Holley in U.S. District Court claiming that Holley violated the terms of a 2001 settlement of a lawsuit in which Holley alleged that Specialty produced carburetor main bodies that appeared to be identical to Holley’s product.

As part of the original settlement, Holley agreed to manufacture its HP line of main bodies with six identification surfaces cast into the each main body, and to stamp “Holley” on one of those six flat surfaces, while Specialty agreed to stop manufacturing and selling carburetor main bodies with that specific configuration of six flat surfaces and use other identification designs.

Specialty later accused Holley of failing to comply with the manufacturing requirements of the settlement agreement, and a federal judge entered an injunction in 2014 that prevented Holley from making any of its HP line of carburetor main bodies in violation of the settlement.

Specialty claimed in a 2017 lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green that Holley continued to violate the settlement agreement by selling Ultra HP main bodies that were previously found to have breached the settlement and argued that Specialty was entitled to disgorgement of Holley’s profits from selling the violating product.

After a 2024 judgment in favor of Specialty that called for disgorgement of the profits, Holley filed a motion to alter or amend the judgment, claiming that the ruling had been reached erroneously.

Hale’s decision last month upheld the previous ruling and ordered Holley to post a $2,231,090.61 appeal bond.

“None of Holley’s arguments meet the ‘exceptionally high’ standard for demonstrating clear error,” Hale stated in last month’s decision, affirming that disgorgement of profits was the appropriate remedy for a breach of the settlement on Holley’s part.

Holley filed a notice on April 2 of its intent to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and all proceedings in the case have been stayed pending a ruling from the federal appeals court.