This morning, Spyker filed a major complaint against General Motors in United States District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan for itself and on behalf of Saab Automobile A.B., which declared bankruptcy last year.
According to a release from Spyker, the lawsuit claims that GM has tortiously interfered with a deal between Saab, Spyker, and Chinese investor Youngman and also accuses GM of intentionally driving Saab Automobile out of business.
Last year, Chinese automaker Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Auto had made a series of attempts over multiple months to acquire Saab but, due to a number of intellectual property embedded within the Saab 9-4X and 9-5's engineering, GM repeatedly denied the deal to pass in order to prevent intellectual property from falling into Youngman's hands.
According to Spyker CEO Victor Muller, "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."
In total, Spyker seeks $3 billion from GM to cover the damages done to Saab during its most difficult times.
While iMotor is no authority in legal matters, Spyker's latest efforts seem to be too little, too late. If GM's actions to prevent Saab's deal with Youngman was in fact illegal, why is Spyker only pursuing the matter after Saab filed bankruptcy rather than when negotiations with Youngman were still ongoing? Please share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.
