Spyker, who owned Saab until it went bust last year, is suing General Motors, saying that it effectively sabotaged a sale of the Swedish company to Chinese buyers.

We all know that litigation is the national sport of the United States, but this looks like a long shot to us. The basic argument is that GM would not licence its technology used by Saab to the putative Chinese buyer, so the deal fell through.

Spyker said it had, “secured the financial backing required to see the lawsuit through to the end from a third party investor.”

Former Saab CEO, Victor Muller said: “Ever since we were forced to file for Saab’s bankruptcy in December of last year, we have worked relentlessly on the preparation for this lawsuit which seeks to compensate Spyker and Saab for the massive damages we have incurred as a result of GM’s unlawful actions.

“We owe it to our stakeholders and ourselves that justice is done and we will pursue this lawsuit with the same tenacity and perseverance we had when we tirelessly worked to save Saab, until GM destroyed those efforts and deliberately drove Saab Automobile into bankruptcy.”

One wonders if they will pursue the lawsuit with the same degree of success as they ran Saab. There have been allegations of incriminating emails from GM which sabotaged the deal, but GM would have been very clumsy to leave a smoking gun lying around. GM was under no obligation to licence its technology to a Saab buyer, so did it really try to secretly sabotage a deal it could openly reject?