Millikin joined the GM legal staff in 1977. In 1995, Millikin was given responsibility for GM’s newly consolidated litigation practice.
GM executives, Mary Barra, CEO, and General Council, Mike Millikin will appear before at a Senate hearing tomorrow over the failure of their companies to recall millions of cars with defective and deadly ignition switches. Millikin’s GM legal staff were approving wrongful death settlements as early as 2007. For accidents where the airbags failed to deploy.
In testimony released ahead of the Senate hearing, Millikin claimed, “We had lawyers at GM who didn’t do their jobs, didn’t do what was expected of them.” Those lawyers are among the 15 people dismissed and are no longer with General Motors.
Thus, the GM tragedy/fiasco moves into a second phase, after GM released a carefully crafted legal report that allegedly explained why the defective switch – and it was known to be problematic when it was being adapted for the Chevrolet Cobalt at the begging of this century. While 15 people were released from GM for cover-ups, no senior executive was found culpable, including Millikin.
Officially the hearing “will examine recent developments and the policy implications following General Motors’ (GM) February 2014 recall and subsequent recalls for defective ignition switches. In particular, the hearing will allow the Subcommittee to examine the various developments and findings since the Subcommittee’s April 2014 hearing, including the May 29, 2014 report issued by Anton R. Valukas (“Report to Board of Directors of General Motors Company Regarding Ignition Switch Recalls”) and the June 30, 2014 announcement of the GM Ignition Compensation Claims Resolution Facility program administered by Kenneth R. Feinberg.
The so-called Valukas report said part of the reason was GM policy – settlements under $5 million could be made at lower levels of the organization. Lawyers of settled cases are calling for re-opening those cases, essentially claiming GM withheld vital information, which kept the settlement costs lower.
Phase two will explore the legal settlements and ask that they be made public, among other problematic issues.
As a sideshow, Rodney O’Neal, chief executive of Delphi, supplier of the defective ignition switch will also testify before The Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance Subcommittee. The Delphi switch was installed in 2.6 million cars GM recalled in February of 2014 and another 8.4 million vehicles were subsequently added to the ongoing legal and public relations disaster. Thus far, GM sales have been unaffected, as dealers are apparently using the contacts with former customers to show off the new models.
