China Approves GM-Delphi Deal

As we reported late last week, the Chinese authorities were beginning to look into the GM-Delphi takeover, in an attempt to see whether the new company to be formed would have resorted to discrimination against other customers in terms of price and product quality. Today, the Chinese announced that the deal is, as far as they are concerned, good to be signed.

Still, their approval came at some cost, as GM and Delphi are now banned from exchanging trade secrets on Delphi's other Chinese customers. This means GM will not be able to benefit from inside information coming from Delphi about possible customers, Autonews reported. Delphi is one of the main suppliers for Chery, Geely and BAIC in the country.

The Chinese approval comes after US anti-trust officials already gave the deal a green light in early September and the European ones soon after. A regulatory review is still ongoing.

As part of the deal between GM and Delphi, the former will assume some $1 billion in Delphi obligations and waive $2 billion in claims, in return for several assets to be taken over. Those assets include four of Delphi’s U.S.-based component manufacturing facilities and its steering operations in Europe, Mexico, South America and Asia.

Delphi is still under what may very well be the longest bankruptcies in the US. Under Chapter 11 since 2005, Delphi hopes to end the nightmare by the end of the month, under the control of the lenders, including GM. Together, Delphi's lenders wavered some $3.5 million in debts.