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GENERAL MOTORS

US judge rejects Saab bankruptcy lawsuit

A US court has dismissed a $3 billion lawsuit by previous Saab owner Spyker alleging that US auto giant General Motors (GM) was responsible for causing the Swedish carmaker's bankruptcy.

Published: 11 June 2013 08:21 CEST
US judge rejects Saab bankruptcy lawsuit

The Dutch sports car maker filed suit against GM in August 2012, claiming the US automaker interfered in a transaction that would have allowed Saab to restructure and stay afloat because GM wanted to dominate the Chinese market.

Saab, a former GM subsidiary, filed for bankruptcy in December 2011 after teetering on the edge of financial ruin for almost two years. A last-ditch bid to raise funds in China, with the group Youngman, was nixed by GM over technology transfer issues.

“GM’s actions had the direct and intended objective of driving Saab Automobile into bankruptcy, a result of GM’s tortiously interfering with a transaction… to restructure and remain a solvent growing concern,” Spyker said in the statement at the time.

GM filed a motion to have the lawsuit thrown out and on Monday a federal judge in Detroit agreed.

“General Motors had a contractual right to approve or disapprove the proposed transaction,” U.S. District Court Judge Gershwin Drain said in a hearing in Detroit, according to the Reuters news agency.

“The court is going to grant the motion to dismiss the matter.”

Spyker CEO Victor Muller refused to say whether or not he would appeal the ruling.

“We’ll consider an appeal as soon as soon as we have the written ruling,” Muller told the TT news agency via text message.

Muller has previously explained that the $3 billion figure associate with the lawsuit corresponds to what Saab would have been worth had GM not scuttled the deal with Youngman.

TT/The Local/dl

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SAAB

Spyker to continue fight for GM Saab pay out

Dutch car builder Spyker on Thursday said it will appeal the dismissal of its $3.0 billion claim in a US court against General Motors, which Spyker accuses of deliberately bankrupting Sweden's Saab in 2011.

Published: 21 June 2013 09:31 CEST
Spyker to continue fight for GM Saab pay out

“Spyker… shall appeal the ruling of the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan,” in favour of GM, the plaintiff car group Spyker said in a short statement from its headquarters in the central Dutch town of Zeewolde.

It did not give any further details.

Spyker filed a lawsuit in August claiming $3 billion 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 $3 billion claim in compensation represented the value which Saab would have represented had the deal with Youngman gone through, but analysts at the time were sceptical whether the suit would succeed.

GM in its response to the claim denied any criminal action or intent, saying Saab had granted it a contractual right to agree, or not, to the transaction proposed by Spyker.

The US carmaker sold Saab in 2010 to Spyker. A deal reached parallel to the sale allowed Saab to keep using GM technologies and keep production going, but allowed GM to stop the arrangement if Saab changed hands.

GM has maintained that Spyker bought Saab “knowing its financial history, and subject to terms spelled out unambiguously in the arrangements attached to the complaint.”

“Those agreements include clear contractual limitations in the future use of GM’s technology, and on the transfer of technology to others,” GM said in a document, filed before the court a month after Spyker filed the claim.

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