Opel Denies Settlement in VW Case

Executives at General Motors Corp.’s German subsidiary denied the companies were close to settling a 3 1/2-year-old dispute with Volkswagen over alleged industrial espionage. “There are no settlement negotiations,” said an executive at Adam Opel, the German subsidiary, denying a report in the magazine Der Spiegel that a settlement had been drawn up by top managers from both sides and was awaiting GM approval. Detroit-based GM says former executive Jose Ignacio Lopez, who resigned Friday from VW, stole GM secrets when he defected to VW in 1993. A VW plant in Brazil, whose construction Lopez supervised, is said to draw strongly on earlier plans by Opel for a “Plant X.” VW executives declined to comment. The German auto maker could face penalties totaling billions of dollars in a suit brought by GM in the U.S.