There appears to be a lengthening queue of people who are claiming General Motors has got plenty to hide when it comes to the bankruptcy of Saab, and the resulting $3 billion lawsuit by Spyker against GM.

In the last couple of days the former head of the component suppliers association, CLEPA, told industry website www.just-auto.com, “I see some papers and emails that are very interesting regarding the action of GM. It is not going away. I suspect we have another scandal coming up.” Now the head of FKG, another suppliers association, has told the same website, “I am sure there has been a lot of dirty or half dirty business behind this last year, what really happened there.”

It is hard to know how much fire there is behind the smoke. All suppliers to Saab will be hoping that Spyker does extract lots of money from GM, because some of it might eventually trickle down to them for all Saab’s unpaid bills. However, we remain sceptical – a position that has always previously proved justified in connection with Spyker and its big ambitions.

GM refused to allow Saab to be sold to a Chinese company, because GM supplied technology to Saab and it did not want that technology falling into the hands of a rival Chinese company. GM already has huge joint ventures in China with its own partner, SAIC: indeed without profits from China, GM would not exist. It will do anything to protect its existing Chinese business and has always made clear it would veto any Saab deal with other Chinese entity. We wonder what Spyker has got on GM?