Aston Martin hit with £150m lawsuit from former dealers

Carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda has been slapped with a £150.0m lawsuit from former dealers who claim they're owed the funds for underwriting the development of its embattled Valkyrie hypercar.

Aston Martin said on Wednesday that Nebula Project, a Swiss company owned by Andreas Baenziger and Florian Kamelger, had filed a case against it in London.

According to the Financial Times, while details of the suit were not public, due to it being a private arbitration, two people with knowledge of the matter told the publication that the case was focussed on a deal to underwrite the development of the £2.5m Valkyrie, as well the slightly cheaper Valhalla supercar, and a third model.

Baenziger and Kamelger had been guaranteed royalty payments of roughly 3%, equating to approximately £150.m, when the cars went on sale.

However, Aston later claimed that the pair had withheld customer deposits for the Valkyrie, and sued them in order to recoup the £15.0m it said it was owed and cancelled their contract.

Aston Martin chairman Lawrence Stroll said: "Last year Aston Martin filed civil legal proceedings against Nebula Project AG, and criminal proceedings against its board members, after we became aware that Nebula had failed to pay what the company believes to be millions of pounds of deposits taken from our Valkyrie programme customers.

"Aston Martin is working with our affected customers to ensure they receive delivery of their vehicles. We are confident in our legal position and believe their counterclaims are retaliatory and without merit."

As of 0835 BST, AML shares had slumped 9.76% at 141.90p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com