Fiat Chrysler sued by GM for bribing the labour union

In a lawsuit filed by General Motors (GM) against Fiat Chrysler (FCA), the former has sued the latter on the grounds of bribing the officials from the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. The lawsuit also claims that GM “incurred massive monetary damage” because of the FCA bribing the officials. Furthermore, GM also insists that FCA induced “multi-year pattern of corruption” to “undermine the integrity of the collective bargaining process and cause GM substantial damages".

One of the bigger names that the GM’s lawsuit includes is the Fiat's late CEO Sergio Marchionne, who is said to have served the senior UAW officials millions of dollars. According to GM, it all began when Fiat was after a major stake in Chrysler in the year 2009. FCA gained "benefits, concessions, and advantages in the negotiation, implementation, and administration of labour agreements over time", alleges GM. That's not all, though. GM has gone on to claim that much of the bribery amount was used for liberal credit card expense policies, unauthorised rewards in the form of expensive watches, an Italian wedding, payments towards a leader's home loan, and fake goods & services.

While GM is using the pieces of evidence that were revealed following a federal investigation towards corruption at the UAW, many of the executives at FCA have already pled guilty and accepted that fact they indeed bribed the union officials. With that in place, GM has also mentioned in the lawsuit that the American automaker is "categorically not against the nearly 50,000 hard-working men and women", and only some particular UAW officials and FCA have been named as the defendants.

"We are astonished by this filing, both its content and its timing. We can only assume this was intended to disrupt our proposed merger with PSA as well as our ongoing negotiations with the UAW. We intend to vigorously defend against this meritless lawsuit and pursue all legal remedies in response to it", said FCA. The lawsuit filed by GM doesn't indicate good times ahead for FCA as the auto giant is not only about to sign a new labour agreement with the UAW but also set to go into a merger with the PSA Group that incorporates various brands such as Peugeot, Citroen, Vauxhall, DS, and Opel.

Also read: Fiat Chrysler to pay US$40 million for inflating sales numbers