General Motors has again filed a number of charges against competitor Fiat Chrysler with a court in the US state of Michigan.
At the end of last year, GM took FCA to court for the first time over alleged corruption and bribes towards the United Auto Workers union. Fiat Chrysler would have (in short) deviously acquired a better employee position than GM thanks to trade union bribery. GM would have had to pay employees more and be harmed as a result. At the beginning of July, however, the judge ruled in favor of FCA.
General Motors (led by Mary Barra, left in the photo) already announced at the time that it would take further steps and that is now the case. GM is now naming concrete banks that would have funneled the bribe from FCA to UAW and is making public two names: Joe Ashton and Alphons Iacobelli. Ashton is said to have played a dual role as a former employee of both UAW and GM. Iacobelli, previously responsible for human resources at FCA, is said to have transferred from FCA as a ‘spy’ to GM. That reports Automotive News. By making the charges more concrete, General Motors hopes that the judge will look at it again and still get satisfaction.
Fiat Chrysler (led by Michael Manley, pictured right) snapped after the judge dismissed the previous charges. It does so now: “We will continue to defend ourselves firmly and will take proportionate steps – including sanctions – against GM’s unfounded attempts to damage our reputation,” the group said. FCA previously spoke of ‘unfounded allegations with the aim of attacking a competitor who is better positioned in the market’. Former UAW president Ron Gettelfinger also hit GM hard. He said, “I may be retired, but I am not dead yet. I will not sit quietly on the sidelines while GM is willfully and unfoundedly attacking me.” For the time being, the stocking is apparently not finished, although Gettelfinger is no longer mentioned in the new charges.