通用汽车欲借内部调查洗清女掌门玛丽•巴拉嫌疑

    通用汽车公司（General Motors）与13起车祸致死事件相关的召回丑闻迄今余波未平，还有大量遗留问题亟需处理。但有一件事这家公司似乎大可放心，即它的首席执行官玛丽•巴拉将不会受到任何起诉。

    《纽约时报》（The New York Times）报道称，通用汽车的高管们相信，在前任美国律师安东•R. 瓦卢卡斯结束调查后，巴拉就将被证明她在这起召回丑闻中并不存在任何过失。

    通用汽车将于周四上午发布这项调查报告的最终结论。

    这家汽车厂商被控有意忽视所产汽车的内在缺陷，导致了多年来多起车祸致死事件。近期它因此被美国交通部（Department of Transportation）和国家公路交通安全管理局（National Highway Traffic Safety Administration）罚款3500万美元。最近它还在接受司法部（Department of Justice）调查，最终可能会被开出远高于3500万美元的罚单。

    这家汽车厂商在因点火开关故障导致车祸致死并随之大规模召回后聘请律所开展了深入的调查。

    《时代》周刊（Times）报道称，国家公路交通安全管理局代理总监大卫•J. 弗里德曼表示，没有“任何记载在案的”文件表明，巴拉在通用汽车执行召回前就知道这个故障。

    巴拉此前已经在国会就此事接受过两次质询，并在很多方面成了这家深陷困境的美国车商的形象代言人。不过《时代》周刊特意指出，还无法解释为什么通用汽车的首席执行官没有更早了解自己产品的这个缺陷，尽管事实表明，这家公司早在2001年就似乎已经知道它的点火开关存在问题。

    而本周二通用汽车称，公司月销售业绩达到了2008年8月以来的最佳水平。（财富中文网）

    译者：清远

    General Motors still has plenty to deal with in the aftermath of the recall scandal tied to 13 deaths, but one thing it seems they won’t have to deal with is any sort of indictment of the automaker’s CEO Mary Barra.

    The New York Times is reporting that GM officials believe Barra will be cleared of any wrongdoing in the scandal after an investigation by former U.S. attorney Anton R. Valukas.

    GM is expected to release the report’s findings on Thursday morning.

    The automaker is accused of ignoring defects in its cars, which led to deaths for years, and was recently fined $35 million by the Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The automaker is still under investigation by the Department of Justice, which may impose a fine that would dwarf those of the DoT and NHTSA.

    The automaker hired law firms to look into its massive car recall following deaths related to faulty ignition switches.

    The Times reports that David J. Friedman, acting director of NHTSA, said he doesn’t “have any records of” documents proving Barra knew about the problem before GM issued the recall.

    Barra has testified twice before Congress on the matter, and became in many ways the public face of the beleaguered U.S. automaker. The Times notes that it has not yet been explained why the CEO of GM did not know about the defects in its cars earlier, despite the fact that the company seems to have known about the faulty ignition switches that led to the crashes since around 2001.

    On Tuesday GM reported its best monthly sales results since August 2008.