Volkswagen reached an agreement with a parts supplier after negotiating through the night, ending a six-day dispute that halted production of Golf and Passat cars amid a shortage of seat and transmission components.
Prevent Group will restart deliveries as soon as possible, and the factories affected will return to normal production on a step-by-step basis, Volkswagen said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday. The shares rose 2.1 per cent to €122.55 at 11:20am in Frankfurt. VW and Prevent declined to release details of the agreement.
Europe’s largest car maker halted work at six factories across Germany, affecting nearly 28,000 workers, after two subsidiaries of Sarajevo-based Prevent took the unprecedented step of withholding deliveries of components amid a contract dispute. Volkswagen, accustomed to strong-arming suppliers, got a rare pushback, complicating efforts to tighten costs to recover from its emissions-cheating scandal.
“I think they have an attitude versus their suppliers which is a little bit too tough,” said Michael Fuchs, the deputy leader of the German chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat-led parliamentary bloc.
The Wolfsburg, Germany-based manufacturer has responded to the crisis stemming from the emissions cheating with a far-reaching push to lift sales and profit at its namesake VW brand. According to Prevent, Volkswagen was seeking to pass on the costs of the crisis by squeezing suppliers and the parts maker was forced to take a stand to secure its survival.
Prevent is led by the family of the Bosnian businessman Nijaz Hastor, who has sought to bolster his activities in the German auto industry in recent years. Through his Halog and Cascade International Investment holding companies, he has acquired 15.2 per cent in train and truck-seat maker Grammer since the beginning of 2016.
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