Jeff Green and Tim Higgins, Bloomberg, April 14, 2014
The hundreds of pages of documents released by lawmakers last week shed new light on General Motors Co. (GM)’s more than decade-long failure to respond to auto-safety complaints, underscoring the struggle ahead for Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra as she seeks to refocus on the company’s new fleet of cars.
The CEO, who has spent most of her three months as the first female leader of a major automaker dealing with fallout from the recall, still awaits two key internal reports that will examine how to compensate victims and assess blame.
Barra’s ability to lead the automaker out of the recall morass, which has already cut profit by $1.3 billion, will be predicated on the GM lifer remaining above the fray and inculpable for the practices she’s trying to root out and eliminate. Davia Temin says Barra has to be ready for a marathon crisis and shouldn’t expect any relief soon. […read more]