General Motors is facing different challenges after talks of faulty ignition switches surfaced. Recalls have reached to millions and the automaker even launched a Recall website to address the problem.
While GM's executives are cooperating with the investigation, one cannot help but think that its legal department hid evidence before. Some Senators even called the GM CEO to fire the company's top lawyer for failing to respond to the issue.
GM was ready to settle with consumers affected by the ignition switch defect, but federal prosecutors are now looking into the suspicions. This is bad news for General Motors as it is hopeful after the numerous recalls of possibly faulty cars, which caused 13 deaths in the past years.
Questions about whether or not the executives and lawyers knew about the faulty switches now arise. The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan and the FBI are leading the new investigation.
GM is said to be cooperating with the inquiry and has held its own internal investigation which led to the dismissal of about 15 lower-level employees, some lawyers included.
Earlier, GM was putting the blame on these lower-level personnel that the automaker described as "incompetent" and that the executives did not know about the problem.
Apparently, the government of the United States and the legal sectors are not convinced, saying evidences were concealed from regulators. GM is also being criticized for not blaming or having GM top lawyer Milkin be held responsible for the issue. Senators wanted to know why Milkin was not fired after it was revealed that he knew about the ignition switch issue but did not make the necessary actions. It will be long before a ruling is given.
GM has recalled millions of vehicles already. The latest recall of more than 312,000 vehicles now brings the total of recalled trucks and cars to a staggering 29 million.
A representative of GM confirmed that the company will cooperate.
"We're cooperating fully" the unnamed GM spokesman said.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has not commented on the issue yet.
