GM News: Investigations Open By Justice Department, Congressional Committee On General Motors Ignition Switch Recall

[William Maley]

Both the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee announced this week they would start investigations into General Motors' ignition switch recall. The recall which affects 1.62 million vehicles worldwide has been linked to 31 crashes and 13 deaths.

The Detroit News reports that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York is heading up the Justice Department's investigation. This is the office that has been investigating Toyota's unattended acceleration recall since 2010 to determine whether or not the company misled Government officials over claims of sudden acceleration. According to two people familiar with the matter, the office's office’s criminal division deputy chief has reached out to lawyers to gather information for a possible subpoena to GM. This is a possible sign to a preliminary investigation.

When asked for comment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and GM declined.

The other investigation is coming from the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee who is looking into why General Motors failed to act quickly on this problem.

“Significant questions need to be answered. Did the company or regulators miss something that could have flagged these problems sooner? If the answer is yes, we must learn how and why this happened, and then determine whether this system of reporting and analyzing complaints that Congress created to save lives is being implemented and working as the law intended,” said U.S. Representative Fred Upton, R-Michigan, chairman of the Committee.

The committee is also looking into why National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) ignored complaints over GM vehicles turning off via the faulty ignition switch.

Source: The Detroit News, Detroit Free Press

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

View full article

[G. David Felt]

It is pretty clear like all companies, if they can avoid a recall and spending money on a problem a company will.

BIGGER ISSUE - WHY did the NHTSA that should PROTECT the CONSUMER FAILED to do their Job? PAYOFF!!!!!!!!! Someone in Someones pocket.

[yougojay]

Words cannot express how pissed off & disappointed I am in GM regarding this latest fiasco.

[G. David Felt]

Words cannot express how pissed off & disappointed I am in GM regarding this latest fiasco.

Yet the current executives are dealing with cleaning up this mess from the past executives. I can understand being mad, but you cannot totally blame the current GM for the Old GM and people who made these poor decisions.

DISAPPOINTED is how I sum it up. GM has Marketing Potential by jumping on this and fixing it right, taking care of the past mistakes and showing the world it cares.

If they do it right, they will gain big time.

[frogger]

I have a colleague who does Project and Portfolio Management contract gigs,and has traveled all over the world doing so for 20+ years. He did one at GM in Michigan pre bankruptcy and said it was the most backwards thinking place he had ever worked. Filled with lifers intent on keeping their jobs the way they were, very few were interested in changing how things were done.

Hopefully that culture is eradicated but I'm sure there are still a lot of long term GM white collar workers in the joint who had an inkling of what was going on back then. Looks like Barra was VP of global manufacturing and engineering from 2004-2008.

Edited March 15, 2014 by frogger