Related Story:Nanjing Automotive Buys Rover

Chinese car maker Shanghai Automotive Industry Co (SAIC) is considering legal action to halt the sale of the collapsed British car firm MG Rover to Chinese rival Nanjing Automotive, a newspaper reported.

Quoting an unnamed source close to SAIC, The Observer said the Chinese car giant is considering a full judicial review of its rejected bid.

'We have already spent 67 million pounds buying the intellectual property rights to MG Rover and do not want to see that investment wasted. We have a substantial stake already on the table,' the source told the newspaper.

Any suggestion of a completed deal is 'moonshine', the source added.

SAIC bought the rights to manufacture the Rover 75 and Rover 25, two of the failed British company's models earlier this year.

Administrators announced Friday they had accepted a bid by Nanjing for MG Rover's assets, raising hopes of a limited return of production in Britain for the country's last home-bred volume car company.

No purchase figure was announced, although some previous reports put the sum at around 50 mln stg.

Trade unionists have expressed disappointment that SAIC's proposals, which they believed would save more jobs at Rover's central England factory, had been rejected.

Union leader Tony Woodley told The Observer that the two Chinese companies should try to set up a joint venture with MG-Rover.

'The best thing for China, Britain and British jobs is for both Chinese companies to collaborate and I will be working exhaustively for this,' Woodley, head of the Transport and General Workers' Union, said after speaking to Nanjing executives.

(Source:AFX/Photo:Google)