Earlier in August, Dutch sports car boutique Spyker filed a $3 billion lawsuit against General Motors, claiming the American automaker was to blame for Saab's ultimate bankruptcy after driving the Swedish company out of business and later tortiously interfering with a deal between Saab, Spyker, and Chinese investor Youngman.
GM was given a window to evaluate the suit and offer a response. On Friday, GM declared that it will seek a motion to dismiss the case. Naturally, Spyker has declared opposition against the dismissal.
Gentlemen, it seems we are in a stalemate.
Crucially GM's involvement concerned the Saab 9-5 and 9-4X, two models that extensively borrowed GM architecture and components. Refusing to license its technology for Saab, especially if Saab was sold to a Chinese entity, GM terminated Saab's exchange with Youngman under the agreements Vehicle Supply Agreement (VSA) and the Automotive Technology License Agreement (ATLA), which allowed GM to protect its intellectual property should there be a change in control over Saab. Youngman intended to acquire a 20 percent stake over the Swedish Automaker, which was enough GM to motion the terms within those agreements.
A battle between David and Goliath, Spyker CEO Victor Muller had said regarding the lawsuit, "Ever since we were forced to file for Saab Automobile's bankruptcy in December of last year, we have worked relentlessly on the preparation for this lawsuit which seeks to compensate Spyker and Saab for the massive damages we have incurred as a result of GM's unlawful actions.
We owe it to our stakeholders and ourselves that justice is done and we will pursue this lawsuit with the same tenacity and perseverance that we had when we tirelessly worked to save Saab Automobile, until GM destroyed those efforts and deliberately drove Saab Automobile into bankruptcy."
Stay tuned as the never ending Saab story continues.
