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were featured on the Russian market," the company said. The Lada Granta was the bestseller in the reporting period with 16,257 cars sold in February, up 161.4% y/y. About 2,700 Niva Legend SUVs were sold this February, showing an increase of 83.5% y/y. About 3,800 Niva Travel model cars were sold, up 64.7% annually.
Avtovaz plans to launch production on the new Lada Granta model in late 2024, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said at a ceremony marking the start of Lada Vesta serial production in Tolyatti on March 6.
Volkswagen (VW) has problems with leaving Russia: Oleg Deripaska's GAZ group lawsuit led to a judicial arrest of the concern's foreign legal entities' shares in Volkswagen Group Rus (FGR), as well as its Russian auto enterprises, Kommersant writes. The hearing on the lawsuit was held last Friday, the next one is scheduled for April 18.
What is happening is all the more unexpected because last year's divorce between VW and the GAZ group was amicable. Now the latter demands to invalidate the termination of the agreement on contract assembly of VW cars at its facilities in Nizhny Novgorod.
The amount of damage is large - 15.6 billion rubles. Most likely, it includes GAZ's expenses from the moment the assembly was stopped and lost revenues. GAZ called the purpose of the claim compensation for damage and noted that it does not claim the assets themselves. The FGR is surprised by the lawsuit, “given good business relations over the years.” The seizure of assets disrupts the purchase of FGR assets by the car dealer Avilon, which seemed to be agreed in early March after AFK Sistema abandoned them. According to Kommersant, the deal, which is being approved by the regulators, also includes social guarantees for 4,000 employees of the Kaluga car plant.
Avilon is one of the largest dealer holdings in Russia. He worked closely with the FGR and was the largest supplier of cars for the Russian security forces. In 2017, the consortium of investigative journalists OCCRP, recognized as a foreign agent and undesirable organisation, wrote that the shareholders of Avilon have a joint business with the son of ex-Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika.
The lawsuit of GAZ has real judicial prospects, the newspaper's lawyers say. The fact is that the FGR will not be able to refer to sanctions as force majeure. GAZ (which, among other things, assembles armored vehicles) fell under US sanctions along with Deripaska back in 2018, and they were never removed from the group. Therefore, VW worked with GAZ for several years under the general license of the US Department of the Treasury, which was suspended only last summer. Moreover, in the practice of Russian courts, it is generally accepted that sanctions in themselves do not indicate the impossibility of
188 RUSSIA Country Report Russia April 2023 www.intellinews.com