General Motors is settling with victims of its cars that have problems with its ignition switch. The car manufacturing giant agreed to settle the criminal charges arising from the 124 deaths because its employees were aware of the problem for almost 10 years before GM began recall of defective vehicles.
Because some of the ignition switches shut of even while the motor is running and the vehicle is moving, the driver and passengers' lives are placed at risk because the airbag, power steering and power brakes are disabled, reports CNN.
The Justice Department announced the $900 million settlement on Thursday. However, because none of the GM officials were charged for the deaths, relatives of the victims pushed for accountability of the company executives to car buyers and not just to corporate profits.
However, Washington Post finds the fine merely a slap on the wrist of GM. The $900 million is not even one-third of the $2.8 billion profit that the carmaker made in 2014. Center for Auto Safety Executive Director Clarence Ditlow says that with the settlement and no criminal conviction, GM "is buying [its] way out of a criminal prosecution."
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told the kin that the law makes it hard to charge individual executives or impose higher penalties on firms. He explains that there is no law that bans carmakers from selling vehicles with defects that could cause death to its driver or passengers. But the law allows the filing of charges for not disclosing the defect to regulators.
Bharara stresses, "We apply the laws as we find them, not the laws as we wish there might be."
GM CEO Mary Barra admits that people were injured and died in GM cars, but the company has introduced substantial changes to the ignition switch.
But Bharara says that after meeting with the families of the victims, he understands their disappointment with no car executive being held accountable for the deaths.
With the agreed financial settlement, GM is under probation for the next three years. If the car giant continues cooperating with the Justice Department within that period, the criminal charges would eventually be dropped.