Tata Motors' Jaguar Land Rover secures up to 1.5 billion pounds UK loan guarantee post cyber-attack

London: In the wake of the Jaguar Land Rover production shutdown following a cyberattack for over a month, the Britain will back the luxury car maker with a 1.5 billion pound ($2 billion) loan guarantee to help support its supply chain.

According to reports, JLR’s shutdown has lasted nearly a month. And the Britain government had been exploring options to support the company and its supply chain, as some small suppliers have said they had one week left at most before they ran out of cash.

The carmaker, which is owned by India’s Tata Motors, has three factories that together produce about 1,000 cars per day, and sustain many jobs in the area around Birmingham, and the northern city of Liverpool.

Announcing the loan for JLR, UK Business minister Peter Kyle in a post on X said, "We're taking decisive action to support JLR and its supply chains."

https://x.com/peterkyle/status/1972191887940518117/photo/1

He stated that we are supporting JLR in order o give certainity to its supply chain following a recent cyber-attack.

Kyle said, "The loan is from a commercial bank nd backed by the Export Development ) Guarantee (EDG) provided by the export credit agency UK Export Finance."

The announcement comes after the visit this week by Kyle and Industry Minister Sarah Jones to JLR's Gaydon headquarters in the West Midlands region of England and a tour of JLR's sunroof manufacturer Webasto to meet senior leaders and workers.

With plants in Solihull and Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, plus Halewood in Merseyside, JLR is one of the UK's largest exporters and a major employer employing 34,000 directly in its UK operations. 

It also operates the largest supply chain in the UK automotive sector, much of it made up of SMEs, and employing around 120,000 people, DBT said.

The department said it remains in daily contact with JLR and cyber experts to address concerns and offer support to get production back online, which is not expected until next month.

In an update issued on Thursday, JLR said it is working to clear the backlog of payments" to its suppliers by increasing its processing capacity for invoicing.

As part of the controlled, phased restart of our operations, we have informed colleagues, suppliers and retail partners that sections of our digital estate are now up and running, the JLR statement said.

The foundational work of our recovery programme is firmly underway. We have significantly increased IT processing capacity for invoicing. We are now working to clear the backlog of payments to our suppliers as quickly as we can, it said.

Britain's largest car manufacturer said the Global Parts Logistics Centre, which supplies parts to distribution centres for its retail partners in the UK and around the world, is returning to full operations.

This will enable our retail partners to continue to service our clients' vehicles and keep our customers mobile. The financial system we use to process the wholesales of vehicles has been brought back online and we are able to sell and register vehicles for our clients faster, delivering important cash flow, it added.

JLR said its teams continue to work around the clock alongside cybersecurity specialists, the UK government's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and law enforcement to ensure the restart of full operations takes place in a safe and secure manner following a difficult time for all connected with JLR.

According to reports, a group named Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters is believed to have claimed responsibility for the hack. It was also behind a number of other high-profile attacks on UK retailers this year, including Marks & Spencer and Co-op.