GM CEO Barra promises no limit on victim compensation.

DETROIT — General Motors CEO Mary Barra said on Tuesday, just ahead of an annual shareholders meeting, that GM won't limit the compensation fund for victims of the ignition-switch defect.

Barra told reporters that GM has given fund director Kenneth Feinberg the authority to determine the breadth of victim settlements.

"Our goal is to make sure everyone who is impacted by the ignition-switch issue is appropriately compensated," Barra said. GM must "do the right thing for those who were harmed."

She added: "I believe if we do the right thing for the customers and we do the right thing for the business, we are doing the right thing for shareholders."

Barra spoke just five days after GM released a 325-page investigative report by outside attorney Anton Valukas that exposed a failure for more than a decade to fix a defect now blamed for at least 13 deaths.

Barra said she had no new information about the ignition-switch recall issue, but reiterated that GM expects to know the size of victim settlements by the end of the second quarter.

Following release of the Valukas report, Barra said she received "hundreds of e-mails from employees reaching out" and offering support. A few flagged issues, she said.

Valukas concluded that inept engineers, secretive lawyers and slow safety officials failed to fix a defect, in part because a committee culture fostered a lack of accountability.

Barra told employees last week to take personal responsibility for safety and alert high-level executives — even her — if they believe a serious problem is not being addressed. "They are absolutely owning the report, internalizing it. They know what this company can be," she said on Tuesday.

Outside the meeting at GM's Renaissance Center headquarters, family members of ignition-switch defect victims gathered to protest GM's response to the problem, saying the company is mired in "moral bankruptcy."

During the meeting, shareholders praised Barra for deftly navigating the crisis. "Ms. Barra, you're doing a fine job," said James Dollinger, a former GM dealer in Flint. "You got thrown to the wolves."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson also offered praise."You have faced a crisis with integrity and courage and transparency and contrition. Anything less than that would have created a great reaction. We are in your debt."


Culled from USA TODAY.