WASHINGTON: Congressional investigators are examining whether General Motors Co Chief Executive Mary Barra and other senior executives were more involved than they have publicly acknowledged as the carmaker considered how to deal with a deadly ignition switch issue linked to at least 13 deaths, three sources familiar with the probe say.
The investigators also are examining whether executives acted fast enough, once they learned of the problem, said the congressional sources.
At issue is who knew about and was responsible for an internal investigation in 2011-2013 that eventually discovered the switch issue which has led to the recall of 2.6 million cars.
GM documents, including emails and internal reports released by congressional investigators, show two former Barra lieutenants, Terry Woychowski and Jim Federico, worked with the GM field engineer who ran the internal probe from August 2011 to December 2013.
Documents reviewed by congressional investigators give no indication the two men informed Barra of the probe. But investigators are still struggling to understand GM’s complex structure, who made decisions on the probe, and who was accountable for the work. The congressional committees plan to hold hearings to question attorney Anthony Valukas, who is running a current company investigation into how it handled the switch, and former CEO Dan Akerson, who ran the company during the 2011-2013 probe. Spokespeople for Akerson and Valukas said they declined to comment.
GM spokesman Jim Cain reiterated the company position that top executives did not learn of the defect until January 31 of this year, when the decision to recall was made. “The whole purpose of the Valukas investigation is to understand the entire chronology of events and who knew what when, and what decisions were made or should have been made,” he said.
Woychowski and Federico did not respond to requests for comment. Federico retired on Monday from GM and has accepted a job at Harley-Davidson. Cain said the move had no link to the switch issue. So far, GM has submitted about 350,000 documents to committees studying the timing of decisions, but GM has yet to produce an organisational chart that would help pinpoint lines of authority, a congressional source said. GM’s Cain said he was not aware of the carmaker having submitted such a chart.
GM has said that senior executives including Barra were kept out of recall investigations to allow engineers to make the
decisions without undue
pressure. Reuters
