SAAB considering suing Austria over Gripen/EF2000 issue

You lose’em, you sue’em. Kind of like Dassault after Korea. Got this from CFF in the ACIG.

Swedish Saab Considering Suing Austria Over Decision To Buy Eurofighter

Vienna Die Presse in German 18 Jul 02 p 3
[Report by Werner Beninger: “When Additional Costs Worth Billions Do Not Seem To Matter — Army Ignores Favorable Financing Offer While Saab May Decide To Go to Court” ]

While the EADS [European Aeronautic Defense and Space] management is on a PR tour through Austria trying to convince the Austrians via
the media of the blessings of the Typhoon Eurofighter and the return business agreed, Roger Lantz, head of the Austrian branch of EADS competitor Saab, is in talks with his superiors in Sweden on how to proceed. Meanwhile, Saab is even considering taking the matter to court.

This is what Lantz told Die Presse: “We have
not yet made a decision. We will wait until the end of July. We hold our offers open.” Further internal documents from the defense ministry, which Die Presse has obtained,
suggest that the decision was obviously clearly steered in the direction of the
Eurofighter and that costs played only a subordinate role.

340 Million Ignored
In addition to the main offer, where Saab’s Gripen would have cost between 229 and 143 million euros less than the Typhoon
(depending on payment being made in either five or nine years), Saab-British Aerospace made the Austrians an alternative financing offer. The evaluation commission failed to take this into consideration. According to a price comparison obviously prepared by an employee of the defense ministry, the cost advantage of the Gripen would have risen to 340 to 278 million euros (depending on payment terms). Moreover, the operating
costs of the Eurofighter are higher by 20 to 30 million euros p.a. than those of the Gripen.

Neither can the return
business have been the decisive factor, as is evident from the complete list of offset deals offered by EADS and Saab which Die
Presse has. Each offer comprises nearly 5 billion euros. On a short-term basis, that is, within five years, a volume of approx. 2 billion euros is realizable for both options. All other projects adding up the return business volume of 200% of the purchase price are mere declarations of intent.
Below are the companies profiting from the EADS projects which are realizable at short notice: FACC, a member of the Androsch group with 656 million euros, the Top Equity Business Development Fund valued at 500 million, Steyr-Puch SSF, a special-purpose vehicle company (owned by ex-Steyr boss Michael Malzacher and the US arms giant General Dynamics) with 250 million, Siemens with 150 million, Boehler, a high-grade steel company, Testfuchs, a testing equipment manufacturer from the Waldviertel, and aircraft parts supplier Wild from Carinthia with 100 million each, simulator manufacturer AMST with 70 million, plastics materials specialist HTP with 50 million, Pankl Technologies, part of the business empire of FPOe [Freedom Party of Austria] financier Ernst Hofmann, with 35.5 million euros, Voest-MCE owned by the Austro-American Gerhard Andlinger with 35 million, engine specialist AVL with 27 million, KTM with 20
million, the Linz machine-tool factory with 10 million, as well as Plansee, and the Joanneum engineering college in Graz with an as yet unknown amount.

The production of the new Cherokee Jeep, touted by EADS as exemplary, is not among the projects on the list. The companies that would have profited most from the Saab
return business worth 2 billion realizable soon would have been: Frequentis, Alcatel, Voest Alpine Eisenbahnsysteme [railway systems], Vienna Technical University and also SSF, FACC, Boehler, Plansee, and AVL.

Sign of Higher Costs
A marginal detail: The volume of the return business announced to be nearly 5
billion shows that the interceptors should cost at least 2.4 billion euros, an amount which Die Presse had disclosed earlier based on highly confidential armed forces documentation. The requirement had been
for 200% of the order level. Since the government officially speaks of 1.79 billion of acquisition costs, the volume of the return business should have been just 3.6 billion euros.
[Description of Source:
Vienna Die Presse in German — independent centrist daily]