General Motors Co suffered from "incompetence and neglect" in dealing with a long-running ignition-switch defect in vehicles linked to at least 13 deaths, CEO Mary Barra said on Thursday, as she announced the creation of a fund to compensate victims.
Barra blamed the pattern of incompetence on "individuals" who failed to "disclose critical pieces of information" about the ignition switches. She said 15 employees found to have "acted inappropriately" have been fired.
Barra said the internal investigation "found no evidence that any employee made a trade-off between safety and cost" in failing to deal with the safety problem, and added that there was "no conspiracy by the corporation to cover up facts."
Congress is expected to announce a new round of hearings soon.
(more on results of GM report on handling ignition-switch defects . . . )
