THE HAGUE: A US court has dismissed a $3bn (¤2.2bn) claim against General Motors, accused of deliberate action to bankrupt Sweden’s Saab in 2011, the plaintiff Dutch car group Spyker said in a statement.
“Spyker announces that the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ... ruled in favour of the defendant GM,” Spyker said in a short statement late on Monday.
Spyker filed a lawsuit in August claiming $3bn in damages.
It alleged that GM criminally interfered in an operation that could have made it possible for Saab, which Spyker bought in 2010, to restructure and stay afloat, because the US automaker wanted to dominate the Chinese market.
Saab, a former GM subsidiary, filed for bankruptcy in December 2011 after teetering on the edge of the abyss for almost two years. A last-ditch bid to raise funds in China, with the Youngman group, was blocked by GM over issues concerning the transfer of technology.
Chinese carmaker Youngman had long been interested in buying Saab and tried to snap it up before it declared bankruptcy—but its efforts were stymied by Saab’s former owner, GM, which balked at transferring the necessary technology licences.
At the time, Spyker’s chief executive Victor Muller said that the $3bn claim in compensation represented the value which Saab would have represented had the deal with Youngman gone through, but analysts were sceptical whether the suit would succeed.
AFP
