10AM UPDATE – Sept 17, 2015 – Wall Street Journal Headline: GM Settles Ignition-Switch Lawsuits
By Al Sunshine, SouthFloridaReporter.com, Consumer Investigator, Sept. 17, 2015 – Could one of the country’s biggest car makers be settling criminal charges and a Billion Dollar Fine for knowing and not reporting a dangerous safety defect that’s claimed more than 100 Lives?
Still, it’s not as bad as expected and NO employees or Executives involved may be indicted or face any criminal sanctions.
The proposed settlement is not going over well with some of the nations top auto-safety advocates, including “The Center for Auto Safety’s” Clarence Ditlow who writes “GM killed over a 100 people by knowingly putting a defective ignition switch into over 1 million vehicles. Yet no one from GM went to jail or was even charged with criminal homicide. This shows a weakness in the law not a weakness in the facts. GM killed innocent consumers. GM has paid millions of dollars to its lobbyists to keep criminal penalties out of the Vehicle Safety Act since 1966. Today thanks to its lobbyists, GM officials walk off scot free while its customers are six feet under.”
Clarence Ditlow
Executive Director
Center for Auto Safety
This Will make a big headline when it’s announced, but will justice be served for the families of the victims and consumers still driving potential death-traps? Here’s what the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday:
By MIKE SPECTOR, CHRISTOPHER M. MATTHEWS and DEVLIN BARRET, Wall Street Journal, Sept 17, 2015 – General Motors Co. is expected to reach a criminal settlement with federal prosecutors as soon as Thursday, a punishment for the auto maker’s botched handling of an ignition-switch defect that led it to recall millions of vehicles and was linked to more than 100 deaths.
The settlement will help put a bookend on one front of a safety crisis that tarnished GM’s recovery from bankruptcy, reduced its coffers and damaged its reputation among consumers.
