General Motors

Some of the leading plaintiffs attorneys in the country are lining up to sue over General Motors' handling of defective ignition switches, the Wall Street Journal's Ashby Jones reports. GM CEO Mary Barra said an internal report prepared by former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas "demonstrated a 'pattern of incompetence and neglect' in the auto maker's 11-year failure to recall cars equipped with a defective ignition switch," WSJ further reports.

After the article was published, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered GM cases to be consolidated in Southern District of New York where GM's bankruptcy is pending.

General Motors, embroiled in litigation and regulatory scrutiny because of a defective ignition switch in millions of cars, moved last week in bankruptcy court to be shielded from liability for incidents that took place before July 10, 2009, which is when the company emerged from bankruptcy restructuring, The New York Times reported. The protection already exists in the restructuring agreement, but a coalition of eight class-action plaintiffs argue that part of the agreement should be voided, The Times further reports. The plaintiffs accuse "G.M. of committing bankruptcy fraud by not disclosing potential liabilities" from  the faulty switch. G.M. has been aware of problems with the switch for more than a deacde before recalling vehicles with the problematic part, The Times also reports. G.M., however, is not seeking the waiver of liability regarding personal injury cases.

General Motors in the middle of a 1.6 million-strong recall involving faulty ignition switches. Now the carmaker says that it knew of faulty ignitiion switches back as early as 2001, which is three years earlier than previously reported, The Wall Street Journal reports. It's not just a recall that GM is facing: "GM's failure to act more quickly to remedy a defect that is now linked to accidents in which 12 people have lost their lives over the past decade has landed the company and new Chief Executive Mary Barra at the center of three different investigations—including a criminal probe," WSJ further reports.