GM rekindles legal spat with Fiat Chrysler

GM has approached a federal judge with a request to reinstate a case against Fiat Chrysler alleging bribery of GM employees and union members claiming new evidence.

Nick Carey and Sanjana Shivdas reported the news for Reuters:

General Motors Co on Monday asked a U.S. federal judge to reinstate a racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA), saying it has new information on foreign accounts used in an alleged bribery scheme involving its smaller rival and union leaders.

In its filing to U.S. District Judge Paul Borman, GM says the scheme, which it alleges occurred between FCA executives and former United Auto Workers (UAW) leaders, “is much broader and deeper than previously suspected or revealed as it involved FCA Group apparently using various accounts in foreign countries … to control corrupt individuals by compensating and corrupting those centrally involved in the scheme to harm GM.”

The AP’s Tom Krisher and Ed White wrote:

GM alleges that payments were made so the officials would saddle GM with more than $1 billion in additional labor costs.

GM’s motion contends that payments were made to accounts in places like Switzerland, Luxembourg, Italy, Singapore and the Cayman Islands. The accounts were set up to avoid detection in a federal criminal probe of the union, according to the lawsuit. The accounts were discovered within the past 10 days by private investigators working on GM’s behalf, according to court records.

Eric D. Lawrence from the Detroit Free Press noted:

The filing lists former UAW President Dennis Williams, saying he was one of the alleged beneficiaries of the offshore accounts, along with Ashton and the onetime lead labor negotiator for FCA, Alphons Iacobelli. Both Ashton and Iacobelli, who later went to work for GM and is a codefendant in the suit, have been convicted; Williams has been implicated in the corruption probe but not charged. He was listed as an unnamed UAW official in court records.