There were calls for Millikin to resign during the second Senate hearing, as well as for GM to unseal ignition switch death and serious injury settlements.
In a terse statement, General Motors says that its top lawyer Michael Millikin has a“informed the company of his decision to retire in early 2015.”
Millikin, of course, was taken to task for his claimed ignorance as General Counsel about the deadly ignition switch debacle during the second Senate hearing on the sordid safety defect coverup that went on for more than a decade.
At least five other members of GM’s legal staff have also left the company – all of them with no public comment or a confidentiality agreement we bet. It looks like Millikin waited a bit after the hearing to give the appearance that the decision to leave was his alone. (You pay your money and take your choice of interpretations here.)
The abrupt departure was revealed in a short e-mail to media quoting beleaguered GM CEO Marry Barra who was the vocal supporter – until now – of Millikin, who was excoriated at the Senate hearing.
“Mike has had a tremendous career, spanning more than 40 years, with the vast majority of it at GM,” claimed GM CEO Barra, whose nose could not be seen growing in an electronic missive. But what followed in the E-mail sure seems Pinocchio like. “He has led global legal teams through incredibly complex transactions, been a trusted and respected confidant to senior management (i.e. Barra), and even led the company’s global business response team following the tragedy of 9/11… For me personally, Mike has been incredibly helpful over the past two decades,” Barra said in a gracious statement.
Millikin, 66, will “remain in his position” until the transition of the new General Counsel is complete, adding to the turmoil at the U.S.’s largest automaker.
Millikin joined GM in 1977 and was made part of the overseas legal matters practice area in 1981. He led the company’s response to the theft of confidential documents and data by Jose Ignacio Lopez and some of his sycophants. He was named Vice President and General Counsel of GM’s International Operations (GMIO) in Zurich, Switzerland in 1997 – a dead giveaway that he was a GM insider on the fast track at the failing company – and named to the GMIO Strategy Board. He was appointed Opel Supervisory Board in 1998, a failing business operation that cost stockholders billions upon billions of dollars up to this day with no end in sight.
Millikin moved to GM headquarters to coordinate GM’s legal services to global operations in 2000. Appointed the GMDAT (now GM Korea) Board of Directors in 2002, he then was promoted to Associate General Counsel in 2005. He was anointed as General Counsel in 2009; ten years after GM knew it had a defective and deadly ignition switch,
Millikin graduated in 1970 from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science degree. He graduated in 1973 from Washington University School of Law and clerked for Judge Vincent J. Brennan of the Michigan Court of Appeals – full disclosure here. Vince Brennan wrote the original bylaws of the Automotive Press Association where I was the first President and currently hold the board position of Treasurer.
See:AutoInformed stories on:
- GM Ignition Switch Compensation – Cash for Indemnification
- Dismissed GM Ignition Switch Employees have Gag Orders
- Delphi Ducks Senate Bullet over GM Ignition Tragedy. Part Number Red Herring as Industry doesn’t Always Change Them
