DPA
Volkswagen production in Emden: In 2016, almost all employees at the Emden plant had to do short-time work because two smaller suppliers had stopped supplying VW
The feud between Volkswagen and the ex-supplier Prevent is heading for the next escalation. The company group, which is controlled from Bosnia, sees VW’s million claims for damages as a direct response to its own steps against Wolfsburg in the United States. She justifies her approach by saying that VW has targeted the industry for years.
“There is a list of all companies affected by possible acquisitions from VW’s perspective,” said a Prevent representative from the German Press Agency. The car company is said to have put pressure on other companies behind the scenes so that Prevent was “actively excluded” in bidding processes for other suppliers. An attempt was made to keep the group’s influence small.
For years there has been a bitter dispute between Volkswagen and Prevent, which now culminates in compensation claims. The conflict mainly stems from a delivery freeze with which the prevent companies ES Guss and Car Trim stopped tapes in several VW plants in August 2016 and caused short-time work for their major customers due to the supply bottlenecks. “The delivery freezes were illegal and illegal,” said VW. The damage caused by the loss of production amounts to more than 100 million euros.
la / dpa