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Aston Martin sued two Swiss car dealers, claiming that they withheld more than 10 million pounds of customer payments, which have been paid to its Valkyrie supercar worth 2.5 million pounds.
The luxury car manufacturer said on Tuesday that it is submitting documents to the Swiss criminal prosecutor asking it to investigate the board of directors of Nebula Project AG.
Aston will also file a civil lawsuit against the Nebula project, which processed some customer deposits of supercars. The automaker said in a statement that this year’s profits will suffer a loss of 15 million pounds and will further book an undisclosed amount next year.
Valkyrie is Aston Martin’s flagship product, limited to 150 models, and 30 track version models, designed to lead the company into mid-engined models.
The automaker added: “Aston Martin is fully committed to supporting and working with affected customers to ensure that they can still receive their Valkyrie vehicles as planned.”
At least 10 million pounds of the 15 million pounds came from lost customer deposits. The remaining £5 million came from accounting reserves because the business arrangements changed after the group terminated the Aston Martin dealership operated by the same director in Switzerland. The company also has four distributors in the country.
According to documents and earlier press releases about the project, the two directors of the business are Andreas Baenziger and Florian Kamelger.
The two helped Aston fund Valkyrie in 2016 by offering to underwrite the project and processing some Swiss customer deposits, which were used to fund the development of the car.
In return, Nebula should collect commissions from the sale of the Valkyrie model and the two subsequent cars Valhalla and Vanquish based on the same technology.
Since the deal has now been cancelled, Aston believes that it will avoid paying Nebulas for reduced sales. In the long run, the automaker’s financial situation will be better despite the financial situation that will be hit in the next two years.
Aston said: “It is expected that the benefits of the termination of the Nebulas Agreement and related potential royalties will offset the financial impact of not receiving all deposited funds.”
This unusual financing model was implemented when Aston was in financial trouble and was unable to invest in the car, which claimed it would be the fastest and most expensive road car ever.
The court documents stated that although the deposits paid by the buyers of the supercars to Nebulas were passed on to Aston, the directors of Nebulas also collected more money from some customers, but they did not transfer them to the automakers.
Some Aston customers joined the legal case, which was first reported by the Financial Times overnight. The automaker said it will comply with the sales agreement. Delivery of the car is expected to begin in September and continue until next year.
Under the new management of Lawrence Stroll, the company is seeking to regain investor confidence, an incident that embarrassed the company.
Canadian billionaire Led a rescue plan of 540 million pounds last year It is now its chairman, promoting its electric cars and focusing on Valkyrie-based mid-engine supercars to steal customers from Ferrari.
Sales of Valkyrie were originally expected to begin in 2020, but they were postponed to the end of this year after the pandemic affected product testing.
The Valhalla supercar based on Valkyrie will also appear in the upcoming James Bond movie No time to die.
Nebulas directors have been contacted for comments.
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