Chinese Dealers Seek Compensation Over Stellantis Jeep Failure

Chinese sellers that market China-manufactured Jeep cars are inquiring Stellantis for thousands and thousands of pounds in payment following the automaker stopped developing the model in China, in accordance to a letter signed by the sellers found by Reuters.

Stellantis is overhauling its system in China immediately after agreeing to file for bankruptcy of its Jeep joint undertaking with local companion Guangzhou Auto Team (GAC) in October.

Stellantis has considering that said it would go after an import-primarily based business enterprise design in China.

Its “unilateral” choice to terminate the partnerships with the dealers has brought about their businesses to make losses and led to layoffs, according to the letter signed by 26 dealers as of Tuesday.

Stellantis declined to remark on the subject matter, but said in emailed comment it abides by Chinese law and that its joint venture’s individual bankruptcy application was going by means of community courtroom proceedings.

GAC declined to remark.

Cao Wei, president of Lianyungang Xuncheng Automobile Gross sales and Company Co., and 1 of the letter’s organisers, informed Reuters that additional dealers would be part of the petition and approximated they would ultimately search for whole payment of 900 million yuan ($130 million) from Stellantis.

They are asking Stellantis to spend them 18 million yuan for just about every store affected to protect the losses together with initial investments and severance payments and to refund their deposits and spend gross sales rebates, the letter showed.

Cao reported Stellantis had refused to shell out what he termed the “standard monthly bill”, which involves deposits and gross sales rebates, to at the very least 50 dealers who were being authorised by the joint venture to market the regionally generated Jeep vehicles in China.

The Jeep joint venture’s Chinese shareholder experienced agreed to shell out 50% of that invoice to all dealers, but Stellantis experienced refused to pay out the rest, as it did not recognise them as its authorised dealerships, Cao claimed.