The Department of Justice announced this week that it has approved the appointment of Bart Schwartz to serve as the monitor for General Motors.

As Compliance Week previously reported, GM last month agreed to a $900 million forfeiture to resolve criminal charges for wire fraud and for concealing information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concerning safety defects in its vehicles. GM also entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) under which it admitted that it failed to disclose a safety defect to NHTSA and misled U.S. consumers about that same defect. Under federal law, auto makers must notify NHTSA within five business days of determining that a safety-related defect exists or that a vehicle is not in compliance with federal motor vehicle safety standards and to promptly conduct a recall.

As set forth in the DPA, the GM monitor will:

Review and assess the efficacy of GM’s current policies, practices, and procedures in ensuring that GM corrects prior statements and assurances concerning motor vehicle safety;

The effectiveness of GM’s current policies, practices, or procedures for sharing allegations and engineering analyses associated with lawsuits and not-in-suit matters with those responsible for recall decisions;

GM’s current compliance with its stated recall processes; and

The adequacy of GM’s current procedures for addressing known defects in certified pre-owned vehicles.

Schwartz is chairman of Guidepost Solutions, a firm that provides monitoring, compliance, and risk management services. He has previously served as monitor or compliance expert for a number of companies, including Point72 Asset Management (formerly SAC Capital Advisors), Deutsche Bank, DHL Express, and BP.

From 1983 to 1986, Schwartz served as Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York under U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani.  In that post, he oversaw prosecutions related to financial and business fraud, among other types of white-collar crime.

Topics