The US Justice Department late Thursday named Bart M. Schwartz, a former federal prosecutor, to watch over General Motors during the next three years as part of a controversial $900 million plea bargain reached during the criminal investigation into the GM’s long delayed ignition switch recall connected to at least 124 deaths. (See: GM Ducks Criminal Charges in Ignition Switch Recall Debacle, Incurring $1.575 Billion in Costs, so far, to Stockholders Because of a Decade long Covered Up about Killing Customers)
GM is charged with two felonies for concealing a potentially deadly safety defect from its U.S. regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, from the spring of 2012 through February 2014, and misleading consumers concerning the safety GM’s cars.
The defect consisted of an ignition switch that had been designed and manufactured with too-low torque resistance and could therefore move easily out of the “Run” position into “Accessory” or “Off” position. When the switch moved out of Run, it could disable the affected car’s frontal airbags – increasing the risk of death and serious injury in certain types of crashes in which airbags were otherwise designed to deploy.
The models equipped with the Defective Switch were the 2005, 2006, and 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt; the 2005, 2006, and 2007 Pontiac G5; the 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 Saturn Ion; the 2006 and 2007 Chevrolet HHR; the 2007 Saturn Sky; and the 2006 and 2007 Pontiac Solstice.
GM in a statement said it “anticipates that Mr. Schwartz will maintain an office at GM and work closely with Jeffrey A. Taylor, who is joining the company effective November 1 as Deputy General Counsel for Federal Oversight.”
