GAZ is suing Volkswagen. The amount of the claim, which was filed with the Arbitration Court of the Nizhny Novgorod Region on April 7, exceeds 28 billion rubles. This follows from the file cabinet of arbitration cases.
The Gorky Automobile Plant had claims against the “daughter” of the German automaker due to the termination of the agreement on the assembly of cars at the GAZ plant in Nizhny Novgorod, which was valid until 2025.
In mid-March, the court had already arrested Volkswagen assets in Russia, then GAZ filed a lawsuit for more than 15 billion rubles. Interim measures have been imposed to prevent Volkswagen from leaving the country until the situation is resolved. At the same time, in early April, the court partially canceled the arrest on real estate objects, as well as on the production equipment of Volkswagen Group Rus.
The amount of the claim is very substantial, it can be used to open a small automobile plant, says Maxim Kadakov, editor-in-chief of Za Rulem magazine:
“When companies agree on such cooperation, they agree to play for the long run, and each company invests in something – equipment, employees and much more, perhaps some kind of know-how. Without knowing all the internal agreements, it is difficult to calculate the money invested, the lost profit. Obviously, we are talking about billions of rubles, 28 billion rubles is almost 0.5 billion dollars, a little less at the current exchange rate, this is decent money. To satisfy the claim in such a volume, you need to have very good reasons. It seems to me that this amount is prohibitive, because it is a huge investment, for such an amount you can build a new small plant for the production of 150-200 thousand cars a year. I think that the transaction for the sale of Volkswagen to Avilon may undergo changes in the financial component of the transaction amount, but this does not affect the enterprise itself. The enterprise, if we are talking about the Volkswagen plant in Kaluga, remains the same as it was. If Volkswagen will pay these compensations, the losing party is obvious, it is most likely Volkswagen. Will Volkswagen compensate for the lost funds in this way by selling the enterprise and adding this money to it – 28 or how many billions that they will be forced to pay to GAZ, I think not, because any enterprise at the moment costs as much as it costs ” .
In Nizhny Novgorod, Volkswagen Group Rus produced Volkswagen Taos, Skoda Kodiaq, Skoda Karoq and Skoda Octavia. The production capacity is 125 thousand cars per year, it was suspended on March 3 last year.
