The Amphibious Combat Vehicle, Lockheed Martin and Patria....something weird is going on! UPDATE!

I sent the below note to Patria HQ in Finland...

Ma'am,
I'm a blogger in the United States that covers military subjects and the US Marine Corps in particular.
One rumor has been repeated over and over and Lockheed Martin has gone silent. There is talk that they ended your partnership for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle Project, "acquired" the best bits from your vehicle and plan on entering their own version.
Is any of this true? Any comment would be appreciated!

That's my version of simple, light, airy and non-intimidating.  What I got in return was surprising...

Hi!
Thank you for your email. You need to contact LM about this. Only we can confirm is that the technology developed by Patria has not been sold as such to the third party.

Did you notice the wording there?  Contact LM? No vigorous defense of the partnership and how they were moving forward together to present the best combat vehicle in the world for the Marine Corps ACV project?

The period to submit bids for the ACV is almost over.  We'll know soon enough but if LM screwed over a major European defense firm then the implications will be far reaching.

If LM submits a Patria clone for the ACV project then Europe will go crazy.

UPDATE:  LM has scrubbed the Patria AMV from their website.  Under the page labeled Ground Vehicles it isn't there (here)!  There has been a nasty breakup and no one payed attention to it.  What remains to be seen is if they enter a vehicle into the ACV project (LM).  One of the competitors is basically begging HQMC for non-disclosure agreements and they've sent them back presumably to make them ironclad.  My guess is that LM doesn't want the bits and widgets of their toy disclosed so Patria can't sue the hell out of them!