The Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.- Apollo Tyres Ltd. proposed marriage is off to a rocky start, and things could go downhill from there.

On Oct. 4, just four days after Cooper's shareholders approved Apollo's $35 per share offer, Cooper filed suit in Delaware Chancery Court to compel Apollo to "expeditiously close the pending" $2.5 billion merger of the two companies.

In the suit Cooper accuses Apollo of attempting to renegotiate or even scupper the firms' merger pact by "seeking to delay an agreement" with the United Steelworkers (USW) union at two Cooper U.S. plants - as ordered by an arbitrator on Sept. 13 after the USW sought arbitration, claiming the sale to Apollo would violate successorship provisions of the union's contracts with Cooper.

Apollo, in a statement, claims that arbitrating the contracts at these two plants would involve making "material concessions" to the USW that would necessitate the need for financing or financial concessions in the terms of the deal with Cooper, and that Cooper "misrepresented its management and control" of the Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Co. Ltd. subsidiary in China to Apollo and to its own shareholders.

Source: tirebusiness.com