A court in Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga has confiscated the assets of the Wolfsburg-based automotive group in Russia following a lawsuit by the former Russian VW partner Gaz. Gaz had asked the court to annul the termination of the assembly contract and to sentence VW to a contractual penalty of 15.6 billion rubles (190 million euros), the Interfax news agency reported on Monday, citing the court file.

The Russian car manufacturer Gaz, known in Soviet times for the production of the Volga sedans, was VW's manufacturing partner in Russia until last year. In the factory in Nizhny Novgorod, several models of VW and Skoda were screwed together. After the US sanctions against Gaz came into force in May, VW officially withdrew from co-production and offered severance pay to employees there.

As in the company's own VW plant in Kaluga, 150 kilometers south of Moscow, production was stopped shortly after the start of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Most recently, it became known that the German carmaker is negotiating a sale of its plant and other assets in Russia. A possible buyer was the car dealership group Avilon. However, such deals must be approved by the Russian government.