Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. has notified the Securities and Exchange Commission it will be unable to file its third quarter 10-Q report on time because it has not been able to obtain "certain business and financial" information from its Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Co. Ltd. joint venture in China.

Cooper explained in a Form 12b-25 filing that following the announcement on June 12 of its plan to merge with India's Apollo Tyres Ltd., production employees at Cooper Chengshan went on strike, "demanding termination of the merger."

The striking employees returned to work on Aug. 17 on a limited basis, Findlay-based Cooper said, but since then have refused to make any Cooper-branded products and have taken "other disruptive actions, including denying access to certain representatives of the company and withholding certain business and financial information."

The tire maker said as of Nov. 12 it had not been able to obtain the necessary business and financial information for its 10-Q and is "evaluating its options for resolving this matter."

Source: tirebusiness.com