U.S. Justice Department may charge GM with wire fraud

[Gorehamj]

John Goreham
Contributing Writer, GM-Trucks.com
6/9/2015

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Justice officials may charge GM and its officers with felony wire fraud. In the eyes of the Department of Justice, GM lied to the public about the faulty ignition switches. Last year Toyota settled similar charges with the Justice Department over its misleading statements about unintended acceleration crashes. That settlement dwarfs all other automotive related fines. At that time, it was clear to those who report news on Toyota and GM that General Motors' liability and possible criminal wrongdoing appeared much more threatening to the company. The GM issue lasted longer, involved more vehicles, and is reported to have caused significantly more deaths and injuries.

General Motors was recently found not liable for the injuries and lowered value of vehicles produced with faulty ignition switches. The courts found that the 2009 bankruptcy shields the "new GM" from the liability it had when it was the "old GM." GM is offering financial settlement to victims' families in the approximately 100 deaths that were found to be related to the defects.

 

 

The probe is being conducted by the Manhattan DA. In a statement, GM said, “We are cooperating fully with all requests from the [Justice Department], as we have from the beginning." GM-trucks.com will bring you more as this story develops. We would be interested to hear your thoughts on the issue. Will GM be charged? Should their 2009 restructuring absolve them of responsibility if they did the same things Toyota did?

 

You can read more at the WSJ on-line here.

[okfoz]

The problem is, when GM went bankrupt, they started as an entirely NEW company. The old Company was General Motors CORPORATION. NOW GM's official name is General Motors COMPANY.

 

Therefore the old company no longer exists.

 

John

[Jsdirt]

Far be it from me to advocate government involvement in anything ... but this needs to be made an example of, to all industries - lie to the public, and your going to pay, and pay BIG.

 

They should go after all the individuals who were at GM at the time the faulty ignitions were being bought and installed, and hold whomever it was in the company personally responsible. If they put as much effort into this as they do demonizing law abiding, Christian gun owners, we'd actually see something accomplished here.

[Kooler King]

The problem is, when GM went bankrupt, they started as an entirely NEW company. The old Company was General Motors CORPORATION. NOW GM's official name is General Motors COMPANY.

 

Therefore the old company no longer exists.

 

John

Bankruptcy is a legal slight-of-hand that may provide a shield for some past financial obligations, but neither it nor a name change protect those criminally negligent ... at least if the justice department has the stomach to prosecute the guilty parties

[Doug_Scott]

I think the driver instructors should be held partially liable as well. Had they done their job properly and trained new drivers not to panic when the steering becomes non-assisted, and also how to stop a car that has the power brake booster no longer functioning, there would not be any deaths from this. God gave most of us two feet, also made the brake pedal big enough for both of those feet in the automatic cars. Neither system became completely inoperative once the engine shut off, they just lost the assistance.

 

To the drivers that already knew all that, they just popped it into neutral, and restarted the engine, drivers with manual trans would just turn the key back on.

 

Not saying GM is blameless, just saying it goes deeper. Charging GM does nothing to educate drivers on what to do if for whatever reason their engines quit(this is not new, engines have died at highway speeds ever since we had highway speeds.

[Jsdirt]

Yeah I agree with you there, Doug. Some people are just completely clueless when it comes to that sort of thing. Seems to be alot more of them today then I remember as a kid ...

[okfoz]

Bankruptcy is a legal slight-of-hand that may provide a shield for some past financial obligations, but neither it nor a name change protect those criminally negligent ... at least if the justice department has the stomach to prosecute the guilty parties

I would agree with you. However who would you go after? It seems to me that the company is so large that there is deny-ability on any level... The Corp President then is not the Company President now. It kind of is a mess, there is no face to put to the company that would scream "Blame that person." I do not see any individual going to jail, rather I just see the corp potentially being fined, at which point the only people to profit would be the government. I think what they are attempting to do is the right thing, replace or correct the problem (simple fix actually, just fill the hole of the key) and move on.

 

Getting someone to blame for negligence would be hard, again, who is at fault? The engineer who could blame the manufacturing, who did not make it to the exact specification. Manufacturing of the tumbler, who would blame the key maker, for the slot, or the designer of the key, who thought having the key with a slot and not a hole was a good idea. You could blame those responsible for the pieces in the tumbler, that it was not up to specification. Or do you blame the committee who chose the design, or the president for choosing who is to serve on the committee?

[Jsdirt]

Maybe this is an indication that we need to change the chain of responsibility from the raw materials, to the finished product.

 

This is starting to become like our federal government - it's so big and bloated with so many tentacles that you cannot accurately blame one person or entity for wrongdoing. Criminals are able to hide in plain sight, due to it's sheer size.

 

Lots of things that need fixing today ...

[Kooler King]

I would agree with you. However who would you go after? It seems to me that the company is so large that there is deny-ability on any level... The Corp President then is not the Company President now. It kind of is a mess, there is no face to put to the company that would scream "Blame that person." I do not see any individual going to jail, rather I just see the corp potentially being fined, at which point the only people to profit would be the government. I think what they are attempting to do is the right thing, replace or correct the problem (simple fix actually, just fill the hole of the key) and move on.

 

Start with the person on record approving the faulty design, reduce sentence if they testify who told them to approve, and go up the chain of command from there. Then, claw-back all executive bonuses (whether active or retired or deceased) paid out during relevant period, whether before, during, or after bankruptcy and put into victim's award fund. Unless they use same server as Hillary Clinton, get all e-mail records and ID those in-the-know who failed to act in responsible manner. The "I was just following orders" defense didn't work in the past, and it should not work here.

[okfoz]

 

Start with the person on record approving the faulty design, reduce sentence if they testify who told them to approve, and go up the chain of command from there. Then, claw-back all executive bonuses (whether active or retired or deceased) paid out during relevant period, whether before, during, or after bankruptcy and put into victim's award fund. Unless they use same server as Hillary Clinton, get all e-mail records and ID those in-the-know who failed to act in responsible manner. The "I was just following orders" defense didn't work in the past, and it should not work here.

I wanted to bring up Hillary, but chose not to...

[HENROCK65]

With all this issue with recalls on these vehicles,has me wondering about "recalls" that haven't been issued yet ,that should have been for the 2006 Chevy Trailblazer.I did have 2 recalls identified though. 1 is the faulty gas tank sender unit. I had to pay for that..then I read up on it and found out it was a recall.So I did get reimbursed for that. 2 is a faulty door switch that could catch fire. Got that fixed. Now I have this fantom issue with my ABS. Anytime I drive just below ten mph, the abs kicks in for no reason.making it difficult to stop,even on dry ground.So I replaced the front and rear Hubs,brakes,rotors and Abs sensors. I thought that may solve the issue.No. It didn't so to avoid getting into an accident. I removed the Abs Fuse,so I could brake properly. I just don't have abs.but the abs light

stay on. So I guess I have to take it to the dealer and have them charge me 100.00 or more ,to diagnose the fantom issue. So I don't know if it's a defect with the abs module,that runs at least 1000.00. Dollars or more. Who knows. It sucks though.this Chevy runs nice after 104.400 miles on it. I do not want to trade it in now. It's a good truck 4x4.

['01LS1]

With all this issue with recalls on these vehicles,has me wondering about "recalls" that haven't been issued yet ,that should have been for the 2006 Chevy Trailblazer.I did have 2 recalls identified though. 1 is the faulty gas tank sender unit. I had to pay for that..then I read up on it and found out it was a recall.So I did get reimbursed for that. 2 is a faulty door switch that could catch fire. Got that fixed. Now I have this fantom issue with my ABS. Anytime I drive just below ten mph, the abs kicks in for no reason.making it difficult to stop,even on dry ground.So I replaced the front and rear Hubs,brakes,rotors and Abs sensors. I thought that may solve the issue.No. It didn't so to avoid getting into an accident. I removed the Abs Fuse,so I could brake properly. I just don't have abs.but the abs light

stay on. So I guess I have to take it to the dealer and have them charge me 100.00 or more ,to diagnose the fantom issue. So I don't know if it's a defect with the abs module,that runs at least 1000.00. Dollars or more. Who knows. It sucks though.this Chevy runs nice after 104.400 miles on it. I do not want to trade it in now. It's a good truck 4x4.

 

ABS systems are just tough to deal with no matter the brand or size of vehicle they are on. Changed king pins on a semi a couple years ago, chased abs light crap for 6 months following.

 

As far as the original post. Do not understand beating this horse anymore in a way that is not going to change a thing. Other than money changing hands between a co & gov.

[okfoz]

The problem I have with ABS is it works too long. I had one car, that if you hit the brakes over a bumpy road, the ABS would kick on, and would continue to pulse, even after the car was off the bumps... Causing me to need to swerve in order to not hit the car in front of me. I have been over that same patch with a non ABS car and never had a problem... Another issue I have had was if my Right tires were on ice, and my left were not, it would kick on the ABS causing me to take longer to stop than if I did not have ABS. Instead of having half traction, it pretends there is no traction. It has gotten much better over the years, I will admit.