General Motors to pay millions in compensation but refuses to admit fault

According to foreign media reports recently, General Motors announced that it would pay 1 million to resolve the fine imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2014 for its investigation into the ignition switch recall case.

GM said the agreement to pay the fine does not constitute an admission that it had done anything wrong, nor does it require any skepticism about GM's financial statements and audit disclosures.

The SEC said inadequate internal audit controls prevented GM from accurately estimating the impact of the ignition switch recall, which has been linked to 124 deaths. In a previous statement, the SEC said GM's accountants were not aware of the financial impact of the ignition switch recall until November 2013.

“Internal audit controls failed to account for potential recall losses,” Andrew Calamari, director of the SEC’s New York office, said in a statement. “Appropriate loss estimation and audit disclosure are critical to the general public’s transparent fiscal principles.”

The SEC began investigating GM in April 2014, two months after the company recalled millions of vehicles because the ignition switch could become misaligned, causing the airbags to fail in an emergency.

GM has since reorganized an engineering team to detect and address the potential problem.

GM has already paid billions of dollars to settle legal cases and government fines, including a $900 million fine to the U.S. Department of Justice and $595 million in compensation to the families of victims of accidents caused by ignition switch problems. According to relevant documents, all the compensation will reach 57% of the price of the vehicle at the time of production.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.