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Elon Musk scored an initial win in his labour conflict with Swedish authorities as Tesla obtained an interim court judgment on Monday forcing the state to deliver registration plates for its new cars. 

In a day of high legal drama, Tesla filed twin lawsuits against the Swedish Transport Agency and national postal service over their refusal to deliver number plates for its cars due to action by postal workers in sympathy with a strike among the carmaker’s mechanics. 

The transport agency said late on Monday that an interim judgment from the court in Norrköping ruled that it had to allow Tesla to collect the plates directly from its offices within the next seven days. 

The agency said it would study the decision but that it was too early to say what the consequences would be. 

The carmaker had sued the agency to allow it to collect registration plates for new vehicles directly rather than have to receive them via post. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, had called the postal workers’ blocking of the delivery of registration licences “insane”.

Tesla said: “We are pleased that with this decision, Tesla can continue to deliver new cars to our customers.”

The lawsuit, filed with Norrköping district court on Monday, demanded that “the registration plates for the vehicles that Tesla owns . . . come into Tesla’s possession”, according to a copy seen by the Financial Times.

The carmaker is also suing PostNord, urging the Solna district court to order the release of all parcels addressed to the carmaker. 

The suits are an escalation of Tesla’s anger with the Swedish strike and with the broadening number of sympathy actions taken by other workers that is increasingly hurting the electric-car maker’s business there.

About 130 mechanics in Sweden, who belong to the IF Metall union, went on strike last month after Tesla turned down their request for collective bargaining.

Swedish unions argue that Tesla needs to sign a collective agreement as almost all businesses in the country do, meaning that wages and working conditions are set jointly in negotiations between unions and employer organisations.

Postal workers who deliver spare parts and registration plates, cleaners who clean Tesla’s dealerships, and dockworkers unloading their cars have all since refused to work with the US brand. 

Musk is a staunch critic of unionisation, and has managed to avoid collective bargaining in its global operations, including in Germany where it opened a factory.

Tesla has no manufacturing in Sweden but the strike is starting to have an impact after a factory that manufactures parts for its cars stopped production on Friday in support of the strikes. 

Unlike in Germany and many other countries, such sympathy actions are allowed in Sweden. 

The Swedish Transport Agency has a contract with PostNord, partially owned by the Swedish state, to deliver all its mail and has said it cannot send it with an alternative company. 

Tesla, which wants to collect the registration plates directly from the transport agency, called its actions “a discriminatory attack” that was “deeply damaging”. The lawsuit added: “This measure cannot be described in any other way than as a unique attack on a company operating in Sweden.”

It added that PostNord’s actions not to deliver the plates were a “targeted and unlawful attack” on Tesla. 

Tesla in the suit accuses PostNord of acting against the constitution, arguing that the sympathy action by postal workers went against the company’s obligation to fulfil the “socially important” task of delivering the mail. 

Seko, the Swedish trade union that includes postal workers, said that it viewed the lawsuit “as a sign that Tesla has not been able to circumvent our sympathy action”.

It added: “There is an easy way for Tesla to solve this, and that is to sign a collective agreement with IF Metall.”

PostNord and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Additional reporting by Peter Campbell in London