Renault to sue A&L over Laguna ‘smear’

A furious legal fight has broken out between Renault UK and Alliance & Leicester after a report sponsored by the bank claimed the carmaker’s Laguna model loses its value faster than any other car in the UK.

A furious legal fight has broken out between Renault UK and Alliance & Leicester after a report sponsored by the bank claimed the carmaker’s Laguna model loses its value faster than any other car in the UK.

Renault says its legal action should act as a warning to companies that try to raise their profiles by employing “dubious marketing exercises”. The bank has published its report on car values for the past three years, as a public relations exercise to support its car loans business.

Renault was incensed by headlines such as “Lose with a Laguna” in the Daily Mail and “Renault La-Goner” in The Sun.

A Renault spokesman says: “We are going to sue Alliance & Leicester for damages without a doubt.” In a statement, Renault says: “Alliance & Leicester should be ashamed to put its name to such badly researched and written garbage.”

Alliance & Leicester has put out a statement defending the methodology behind the report, which was produced for it by the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR). It says CEBR is taking legal advice on Renault’s statement which derides CEBR as ridiculous, claiming the organisation “obviously knows nothing about the motor industry or even the basics of how to do accurate research”. Alliance & Leicester says it has temporarily removed the report from its website “as a pragmatic step”.

Renault claims the research is flawed because the Laguna model on sale today is not the same as the model sold three years ago.