Two of Germany’s biggest defence contractors are embroiled in a legal battle over rights to the Leopard 2 — the battle tank that Berlin has approved to send to Ukraine after months of international pressure.
Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, a Munich-based company that first developed the Leopard 2 in the 1970s and builds its chassis, has filed an injunction against Rheinmetall, which produces the tank’s cannon, over claims made by its chief executive.
Armin Papperger, who has headed Düsseldorf-based Rheinmetall for a decade, last month told Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung that the company controlled rights to some of the older Leopard 2 models and had roughly 1,000 such vehicles in stock.
According to a statement by a district court in Munich, KMW has disputed this as “untrue, misleading and infringing on their rights”, and asked the court to restrain Rheinmetall from making such claims in the future.
Rheinmetall and KMW both declined to comment. A hearing will take…