Tesla wins court backing in suit over blocked license plates in Sweden

Tesla won the backing of a Swedish court on November 27 in the electric-car company's lawsuit to unblock access to license plates for its vehicles in the Scandinavian country.

The Norrkoping district court ruled that the Swedish Transport Agency must get the license plates to Tesla within seven days or face a fine of 1 million kronor ($95,383), Swedish media reported. Delivery of the plates is being blocked by industrial action by postal workers, according to Politico.

The US-based company charges that the blockage of access to license plates for new vehicles “constitutes an unlawful discriminatory attack directed at Tesla,” according to the media reports.

The transport authority denied the charges. “We at the Swedish Transport Agency do not share this view that the agency was blocking the distribution of license plates,” an agency spokesperson told the Associated Press.

Workers at the state-run PostNord postal service on Nov. 20 joined an industrial action aimed at forcing Tesla to sign a collective bargaining agreement for mechanics in Sweden, Reuters reported. The transport agency refused to deliver the plates by other means, saying it was contractually bound to use PostNord, according to the report.