The Arbitration Court of the Nizhny Novgorod Region granted the petition of GAZ to seize the property of the German concern Volkswagen (VW) in Russia as part of a case to recover 15.6 billion rubles from the company. losses for termination of the agreement on contract assembly in Nizhny Novgorod. The corresponding lawsuit was filed on March 14. The document is placed in the file of arbitration cases
In particular, the court seized the following VW property:
a 28.06% stake in Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft in the authorized capital of Volkswagen Group Rus LLC;
a 16.8% stake in Skoda Auto AS in the authorized capital of Volkswagen Group Rus LLC;
a 55.14% stake in Volkswagen Dinance Luxemburg SA in the authorized capital of Volkswagen Group Rus LLC;
11 real estate objects of Volkswagen Group Rus LLC, as well as seizure of production equipment and other movable property of the company;
share of Volkswagen Group Rus LLC in the authorized capital of Volkswagen KS LLC, Scania Insurance LLC and Scania Finance LLC.
In addition, the court prohibited the Federal Tax Service from carrying out any registration actions related to the liquidation, reorganization, change in the composition of participants, increase and decrease in the authorized capital in Volkswagen Group Rus LLC, Scania Insurance LLC and Scania Finance LLC.
The court ruling says that GAZ filed a lawsuit to impose interim measures on VW after the German concern terminated the May 2017 agreement on contract assembly of cars under the VW trademarks at the GAZ plant in Nizhny Novgorod. The agreement on contract assembly was valid until the end of 2025, but in March 2022, the concern publicly announced its decision to suspend the production of its cars in Russia, the plaintiff emphasizes.
GAZ believes that due to the decision, VW suffered losses in the amount of 15,574,846,000 rubles, which is why it proposed to arrest 100% of the authorized capital of Volkswagen Group Rus, as well as the company’s real estate and its shares in the authorized capital subsidiaries of Russian legal entities.
“According to GAZ Automobile Plant LLC, the Volkswagen Group plans to permanently leave the Russian market in the near future by selling the remaining assets to third parties, which creates the risk of alienating both shares in the authorized capital of the FGR and the alienation of individual assets by the FGR, for example, owned him a car factory in Kaluga. In the event of the sale of a share in the authorized capital of the FGR, Volkswagen AG will not have any other assets in Russia, which, according to the plaintiff, is sufficient grounds for taking interim measures, ”the court ruling says.
RBC sent a request to a Volkswagen representative.
Volkswagen suspended assembly in Russia and deliveries of cars to the country in March last year. The company allowed the sale of its Russian assets during 2023. The largest of them, the VW plant in Kaluga, could be sold to one of the largest dealer holdings in Russia, Avilon, RBC sources reported in early March. The plant’s capacity is 225,000 vehicles per year; in 2021, 118,000 vehicles were produced there.
At the beginning of February, 2023 it was also reported about interest to Volkswagen assets from AFK Sistema. But, according to RBC sources, the corporation eventually abandoned the deal.