GM demands non-compete clauses in return for Opel patents: Spiegel

[February 24, 2017]  FRANKFURT (Reuters) - General Motors has told PSA Group it would only sell licenses for the manufacture of Opel cars to the French company if it agreed not to sell them in North America, Russia or China, German magazine Der Spiegel reported.

Without saying where it got the information, the magazine said under such an agreement Opel would only be allowed to sell new models in those three markets following a possible tie-up with PSA, but not existing ones such as electric car Ampera-e.

PSA declined to comment on the report. Opel was not immediately available for comment.

PSA, the Paris-based maker of Peugeot and Citroen cars, and Detroit-based GM confirmed on Feb. 14 they were in talks over a PSA-Opel tie-up to create Europe's second-largest carmaker by sales after Volkswagen.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; additional reporting by Laurence Frost and Ilona Wissenbach; editing by David Clarke)

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