GM Makes Undisclosed $600K Deal with CFO’s Wife’s Ad Agency

Note: This first appeared in Breitbart.com's Big Government.

The $50 billion General Motors (GM) bailout was a Democrat Crony Socialist nightmare. The Obama Administration illegally over-rewarded its union friends and destroyed Republican-enemy auto dealers, to name but two facets of the titanic debacle.

We the Taxpayers are still out $30+ billion on the auto bailout. Meanwhile, GM is cutting even more Crony Socialist deals.

General Motors told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today that it failed to report a $600,000 deal given to an ad agency where the wife of GM's chief financial officer is a partner.

In a filing GM said it had "recently learned about" a contract awarded in 2011 to an agency where CFO Dan Ammann's wife, Pernilla Ammann, is also the chief operating officer.

It’s not just the crime - it’s the cover up.

“Recently learned about?” I know GM is a big company - even after the thousands and thousands of employee firings the Obama Administration ordered as a part of the bailout bankruptcy. But seriously, someone can write a $600,000 check - to the CFO’s wife’s company - and no one else notices?

The company has a detailed policy in potential conflicts of interest which says, in part: Deals of more than $120,000 in which a top executive's spouse has a financial interest must be approved by CEO Dan Akerson and Senior Vice President and general counsel Michael Millikin.

The arrangement must then be reported to the GM board of directors' Governance Committee, which annually reviews each top executive's independence.

Either GM CEO Dan Akerson knew about the deal and he’s complicit - or he didn’t and his inmates are running the asylum.

(GM spokesman Dave) Roman said the deal was "properly ratified" by Akerson and Millikin "after the fact, which under our policies we are certainly allowed to do."

Oh - so Akerson is retroactively complicit. Was the board’s Governance Committee then retroactively notified, as per GM protocol? We don’t know.

Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, said it's not uncommon for executives to have to disclose deals that benefit their spouses. "The question is, how did they miss it?"

He added: "How much of that did she share in? It's certainly something shareholders would want to know."

We the Taxpayers own 500+ million shares of GM stock - on which we’re poised to take a $16 billion bath. We would certainly like to know.

News of the transaction was reported Oct. 7 by trade journal AdWeek, which quoted another GM spokesman saying there was no competitive review for the "one-off" deal.

“No competitive review for the ‘one-off’ deal.”

Sounds like quintessential Obama Administration-esque Crony Socialism to me.

Tags: 2012, Administration, Bain, Big, Capital, Chevrolet, Criticism, Economics, Election, Environment, More…

10 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of Tea Party Nation to add comments!

Join Tea Party Nation

Comment by MUG on May 31, 2012 at 12:18pm: daves. What are the outright lies? Itemize them or else quit revealing to us your mindless blind allegiance to the most dishonest regime in our history.

Comment by Debrajoe Smith-Beatty on May 31, 2012 at 9:52am: Thanks for the information.

Comment by Lawrence Brown on May 31, 2012 at 9:46am: Dig a big hole and bury all of them.

Comment by Gail E. Engelhardt on May 31, 2012 at 9:05am: Crony Socialism! What about the fact that the taxpayers who bailed out GM are not being paid back, and now GM has sold out to China. 70% of all cars manufactured by GM are being built IN CHINA and not by American workers. How's that sit with you??? Just Another Way for the Obama Administration to waste our tax dollars on a company who has sold us out to China. HOW'S THAT CHANGE WORKING FOR YOU?

Comment by William T. Olson on May 31, 2012 at 8:40am: Sound to me there should be some arrests and prison time coming. The whole thing was illegal in the first place. President Romney's AG will be busy out of the gate.

Comment by Dave Wagner on May 31, 2012 at 8:39am: I'm so done with GM!! I have owned many of their autos but after the CEO whined that if gas were only $10.00 per gallon he could sell more Volts it's a company being run by idiots!!

Comment by MUG on May 31, 2012 at 8:37am: I hope President Romney liquidates GM under Chapter 7 and pays back the tax payers and compensates the original investors who were victims of Obama Grand Larceny. In fact I hope President Romney has Obama prosecuted for High Treason.

Comment by Roni Smith on May 31, 2012 at 8:33am: The only way we can cut off this cronyism, is to make our laws very strict, and to make laws much strickter and to incarcerate those who break them. I don't care if the offender is young or old The law is the law and must enforced, whether the perpetrator is the garbageman or the President of the United States.Anything that is owed the the American taxpayers, must be squared away befor the Ballots are printed for the election.

Comment by Rich Knoch on May 31, 2012 at 8:23am: They're just following the example set by their Dear leader. Corruption, our Constitution, their own corporate Rules & Regulations and simple common sense have all flown out the window.

These crooks also have a $45 Billion Tax Credit to shield GM from paying corporate income tax until after they go bankrupt again.

Anyone buy a Chevy Dolt lately?

Have they re-started production?

Has the rebate increased?
http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/4/2843549/chevy-volt-production-stop...

Comment by Russell Edmund Fowler on May 31, 2012 at 8:19am: Gangster Auto in the works.