Toyota has filed a lawsuit with a US court for damages against General Motors’ bankruptcy estate over the closure of their joint manufacturing plant in California.
The Japanese carmaker claims GM’s Motors Liquidation Company (MLC) should pay US$73m for breach of contract over the closure of the New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) plant this year.
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GM pulled out of the venture last year as it restructured under government-backed bankruptcy protection. Toyota closed the plant earlier this year after reaching a deal with the plant’s 4,500 unionised workers.
Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said: “We’ve been discussing how to pay costs of winding down NUMMI for more than a year. We filed the suit on 24 November.”
Toyota sold the factory to Tesla Motors in May after the Japanese carmaker bought a US$50m stake in the electric vehicle company.
Separately, NUMMI has also filed a suit against MLC, seeking about US$360m in damages stemming from the dissolution of the joint venture.
A statement said that MLC, responsible for the discarded assets of the former auto giant, chose “to end its active participation in NUMMI,” which “breached MLC’s commitments to NUMMI and sounded its death knell.”
GM was forced into bankruptcy protection in June 2009, as it got a US$50bn government bailout. The company recently launched a US$23bn share offering in a dramatic turnaround for the embattled company.
