CEO of General Motors has been called back to appear before a U.S. Senate subcommittee next week. This is to testify again on the recent investigation and also hear from a supplier who manufactured the defective switches.
The next meeting is set on July 17, Thursday. General Counsel Mike Millikin and Delphi Automotive CEO Rodney O'Neal will join Barra in the congressional hearing. This is the third time the GM CEO will be testifying. She has testified earlier in June 18 and the first time last April before the House of Representatives.
Delphi Automotive executives have not said anything on public yet about the issue. The hearing next week will be the first the investigators will hear from the supplier.
The title of the Thursday hearing is "Examining Accountability and Corporate Culture in the Wake of the GM Recalls" which will start at 10am on July 17.
The meeting will continue the investigation on why it took General Motors 11 years to recall vehicles with defective ignition switches. The known defect caused 13 deaths and dozens of accidents but it was only recently the car manufacturer decided to pull out the models. Defective switches were placed on the following models: Saturn Ion, Saturn Sky, Chevrolet Cobalt, Chevrolet HHR, Pontiac G5 and Pontiac Solstice.
To date, 30 million vehicles manufactured by GM have been recalled. It is said there was a delay in releasing a safety recall warning. However, the main focus will be on the 2.6 million vehicles recalled earlier in February this year.
Allegedly, GM did not act on the proposal of Delphi back in 2005.
"It is our understanding that a fix was proposed by Delphi regarding the ignition switch in 2005 but GM did not adopt the change. As we continue evaluating the GM recall, it is critically important that we understand the decisions made by Delphi and the company's interaction with GM," U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill wrote to Delphi CEO O'Neal last April.
The Senate subcommittee said the focus next week would be the findings of a GM investigation and a compensation program report, among others. Anton Valukas led the internal GM investigation. He was the one who said that General Motors did not see the implications of the switch problem. He further said that no executive covered the issue.
On the issue of compensation, the expert GM employed to manage the payouts to victims, Kenneth Feinberg, is also scheduled to appear at the hearing. Feinberg was the one who said GM did not set a compensation cap for the victims.
