Detroit New allegations that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV executives are bribing United Auto Workers officials with tens of millions of dollars in secret offshore bank accounts has been “too speculative” and do not guarantee a new court case, a judge said Friday.
U.S. District Judge Paul Borman ordered the order from one week after General Motors Co. new allegations leveled – without providing evidence – that a list of UAW leaders, including retired president Ron Gettelfinger, was fined by foreign bank accounts. FCA has denied the allegations.
GM cited the accounts in asking Borman to reinstate a civil lawsuit that involved two motorists in a bitter fight over bribery and a pattern of crimes GM said was aimed at corrupting the collective bargaining process and saddle the Detroit automaker with higher labor costs. GM also accused Borman of making legal mistakes in dismissing the lawsuit last month.
There was no clear legal error, Borman wrote Friday, adding: “… and GM’s newly discovered evidence is too speculative to warrant this case again.”
GM will appeal to the U.S. 6th Circuit in Ohio, said spokesman David Caldwell in a statement: “Today’s decision is disappointing because the corruption in this case is proven given the many guilty plea cases from the ongoing federal investigation. GM’s package will continue – we will not accept corruption. “
Oaths signed by GM lawyers claiming that Fiat Chrysler executives used bank accounts and “paid mills” within GM to support a bribery scheme “do little to support this theory,” the judge wrote.
“Even if the confirmations state that these foreign bank accounts exist, that fact does not apply until the inference by GM, that FCA more than likely used the bank accounts to bribe UAW officials,” Borman wrote.
GM also pointed to nearly 30-year-old allegations about how FCA’s predecessor, Fiat SpA, used foreign bank accounts to bribe politicians.
“However, the existence of foreign bank accounts, and a nearly thirty-year-old scandal do not move GM’s claims across the line from speculative or to think plausible,” the judge wrote.
The FCA’s lawyers denied the allegations of bribery.
“Judge Borman’s ruling this morning,” the Italian-American automaker said in a statement, “reaffirms what we have said from the beginning – that GM’s lawsuit is without merit – and its attempt to file a modified complaint. serving under the auspices of the court to ask for a change of mind was nothing more than an unfounded attempt to smear a competitor who wins in the market. ”
A lawyer for former FCA Vice President Alphons Iacobelli, who is accused of controlling offshore funds, called the claims baseless and “scurrilous.”
Iacobelli lawyer Michael Nedelman compared the holding and bearing of GM’s legal team to the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, who claimed to have a list of government workers who belonged to the Communist Party in the 1950s.
Borman dismissed the case last month that accused Fiat Chrysler’s late CEO, Sergio Marchionne, of orchestrating a bribery scandal to corrupt three rounds of negotiations with the UAW. The collusion was designed to damage and take over Detroit’s largest motorist, according to the lawsuit, which said GM lost “billions of dollars.”
Gettelfinger, who retired in 2010, issued a statement through the UAW saying he read the accusations “with disgust and resentment” and blamed GM “for their malicious and completely baseless attack on me and a supposed ‘unnamed’ member of my family. “
Twitter: @robertsnellnews
