Volkswagen accord in parts dispute

Volkswagen has reached a deal with a rebellious supplier, ending a six-day standoff that halted production of Golf and Passat cars after the parts maker refused to provide seat and transmission components.

Prevent Group will restart deliveries as soon as possible, and Volkswagen’s affected factories will gradually return to normal production, the companies said in a joint statement.

They declined to release details of the agreement. Volkswagen shares rose 2.2%.

Europe’s largest carmaker halted work at six factories across Germany, affecting nearly 28,000 workers, after two subsidiaries of Sarajevo-based Prevent took the unprecedented step of withholding deliveries of components amid a contract dispute.

Volkswagen, accustomed to strong-arming suppliers, got a rare pushback, complicating its efforts to tighten costs and recover from its emissions-cheating scandal.

“I think they have an attitude versus their suppliers which is a little bit too tough,” said Michael Fuchs, deputy leader of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat-led parliamentary bloc.

Volkswagen has to “negotiate properly” with its suppliers, he said.

The Wolfsburg-based manufacturer has responded to the crisis stemming from the emissions cheating with a far-reaching push to lift sagging sales and profit at its namesake VW brand.

According to Prevent, Volkswagen was seeking to pass on the costs of the crisis by squeezing suppliers, and the parts maker was forced to take a stand to secure its survival. Still, the standoff isn’t likely to serve as a model for Prevent’s peers.

“I don’t see this happening again,” said Sascha Gommel, an analyst with Commerzbank, who had estimated that the production stoppage could cut profit by as much as €70m a week. “You’re really risking business.”

Volkswagen shares, which have fallen 8.3% this year, gained almost 2% in Frankfurt trading, valuing the company at €63.8bn.

Even with the agreement, Volkswagen could still face aftershocks over the standoff. Bafin, the German financial-market regulator, said it’s looking into whether VW was too slow in informing markets about the dispute.

The company did not issue a public statement on the issue until Monday.

Prevent is led by the family of Bosnian businessman Nijaz Hastor, who has sought to bolster his activities in the German auto industry in recent years.