Former Saab CEO Jan Ake Jonsson.
Three former Saab Automobile AB executives, including one-time CEO Jan Ake Jonsson, have been detained by Swedish authorities and could face charges involving tax and accounting fraud.
The unexpected development comes nearly 18 months after the long-struggling automaker filed for bankruptcy, most of its assets eventually sold to a Japanese-Chinese consortium. A $3 billion lawsuit filed by the Dutch company that purchased Saab from General Motors, meanwhile, has yet to be resolved.
Ex-CEO Jonsson is one of three former executives who could face up to four years in prison based on the allegations raised in Vanersborg District Court which covers Saab’s former headquarters in Trollhattan, Sweden.
Saab/Spyker's Victor Muller with former CEO Jonsson.
They are “suspected of aggravated attempts to avoid tax controls,” according to prosecutor Olof Sahlgren, who alleges the three executives attempted to falsify some of Saab’s accounting between 2010 and 2011, following the maker’s sale by GM to the Netherlands’ Spyker.
Authorities initially declined to identify the three executives but Jonsson was cited by The Local, a Swedish news website publishing in English.
Prosecutor Sahlgren told The Local the three former executives are being detained “because the risk is that they get together to sync their stories.”
The 61-year-old Jonsson spent almost four decades working with Saab before unexpectedly retiring in March 2011.
During the period covered by the allegations Spyker assumed control of Saab and attempted to restart the maker’s production operations. But sales of the then-new 9-5 and 9-4X models failed to meet expectations and the cash-short company wound up unable to pay its suppliers. That led to a boycott that shut the Trollhattan assembly line down again, a crisis Saab was unable to recover from.
Led by Chairman Victor Muller, Saab desperately attempted to raise cash, either by bringing in new investors or, eventually, selling the company outright. Several possible white knights were rebuffed by General Motors, however, Saab’s former parent retaining veto rights over such a deal.
The Swedish maker was forced into bankruptcy in December 2011 and most of its key assets were purchased, months later, by National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB. The new Japanese-Chinese consortium plans to produce electric vehicles at the Trollhattan plant.
Even while the new fraud case gets underway in Sweden, another lawsuit is slowly moving ahead in the U.S. It pits Muller’s little Spyker, a Dutch specialty car manufacturer, against General Motors.
Muller alleges the U.S. giant improperly interfered with Saab’s business, ultimately forcing it into insolvency. He is seeking $3 billion in damages which would be shared by Spyker and what’s left of Saab.