A new lawsuit has been levied against General Motors over the unending tangle that is the ignition switch debacle, this one originating from GM investors. The class action suit is said to represent anyone who acquired stock in the automaker from November 17th, 2010, to July 24th, 2014.
Automotive News reported on the lawsuit, and quoted the plaintiffs’ complaint thusly: “GM’s long belated recall of these dangerously unsafe cars has now led to the loss of billions of dollars of market value for GM investors.” The complaint cites “severe and systemic problems” with General Motors’ internal controls, and this allegedly manifested in a “failure to accurately account for and disclose… associated liabilities, costs, and contingencies in its financial statements.”
In March, when one such investor lawsuit was leveled at the corporation, GM spokesman Jim Cain that no executive at the automaker knew of any ignition switch defects until January 31st, 2014, at the soonest. While it’s unclear whether or not this was indeed the case, it seems to us equally unclear whether this would weaken the plaintiffs’ suit.
Comments
First and foremost, may God Bless all those killed and injured by this defect and coverup, and their families.
I too agree there is a compelling case and many things still need to come to light about who knew what, and when. I am hopeful there will be full discovery and disclosure at some point, and I am thinking more heads might roll.
What I am hoping for, though, as a long time GM support of over 50 years, despite many missteps, is that any criminal charges brought will be focused on individuals and not the institution, and tempered with the same legal force used or not used in the billion dollar banking and financial crisis of the past 6 years. By using equal application of the Eric Holder “Collateral Consequences” memo written in 1999 and applied to criminal behavior by corporations that resulted in huge fines but not breaking up of the corps themselves, due to the possibility that doing so would negatively affect tens of thousands of shareholders and employees, i.e. the “Collateral Consequences” of a breakup would be economic disaster for these folks.
The main difference, of course, is that lives were lost in these instances, but in my opinion, if it can be applied to billion dollar bailed out banking institutions, it can be applied to the car industry as well. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander..
While it is possible and even probable that the Valukes report did not cover everything I doubt there will be any smoking gun found. He was given full access to everyone and everything.
And the fact that there really has been nothing more found shows that there is little out there to be found. Whatever happened to all the “evidence” that Delphi supplied a few months ago? Not a peep since then.
Enough already. Bean counters and stock holders are a big reason the auto industry became such a mess. And then politicians (most of whom are lawyers, not engineers) get involved and really screw things up. GM screwed up and is trying to fix this mess. While we keep an eye on its executive board, it’s time to move on.
The industry as whole isn’t a mess, just GM is. And it’s not so much bean counters, and stock holders but union thugs, mind boggling quality issues for last, oh, six decades, and inept leadership.
This is not a “mess”. This is dead people which you cannot “fix” nor can you calculate a value (compensation???) for their lives. All because a known truly fatal flaw was brushed under the rug. GM should be out of business over this one.
It’s a bail-out baby that should have been allowed to croak anyhow ! Fix this mess, indeed ! Try that for yourself if someone you loved got killed in a General Murders vehicle !