General Motors Co.’s share price down, CEO Mary Barra appears before lawmakers to defend company’s culture and policy

The CEO of General Motors Co. – Ms. Mary Barra made her second appearance before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, which interrogated her for almost three hours on the matters of the slow recall of vehicles with an ignition switch defect, linked to the death of at least 13 people. Ms. Barra, who took over the position of Chief Executive Officer on January 15th, defended her efforts to change General Motors’ culture.

The U.S. auto manufacturer’s CEO was questioned by several members of the subcommittee, including the Pennsylvania Republican Mr. Tim Murphy, the Michigan Republican Mr. Fred Upton and the Colorado Democrat Ms. Diana DeGette.

As reported by the Financial Times, Ms. Barra made an effort to encourage workers to express their opinion on matters concerning safety issues and told the Texas Democrat Gene Green: “We’re creating a culture – I have evidence of it every day – where employees are coming forward. They are doing the right thing.”

The author of the report on the problem – Mr. Anton Valukas also appeared at the probe, where the members of the Committee asked not only questions on the report’s conclusion but also wanted to know if General Motors Co. is planning any organisational changes. The Committee members also tried to find out whether the dismissal of the 15 employees involved in the situation would be enough to prevent an eventual similar problem in the future.

“The report absolves previous CEOs, the legal department, Ms. Barra, and the GM Board from knowing about the tragedy beforehand,” said Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, cited by Bloomberg. She also added: “But that is nothing to be proud of. That the most senior GM executives may not have known about a defect that caused more than a dozen deaths is, frankly, alarming.”

This was the first interaction of the company’s Chief Executive Officer with the Congress since General Motors unveiled the results of its internal investigation on the problems related to the defected ignition switches.

Ms. Mary Barra said during the interrogation, which was cited by Bloomberg: “I know some of you are wondering about my commitment to solve deep, underlying cultural problems uncovered in this report. The answer is I will not rest until these problems are resolved. As I told our employees, I am not afraid of the truth. And I am not going to accept business as usual at GM.”

General Motors Co. was 0.17% down to close at 36.30 dollars per share yesterday, marking a one-year change of +7.84%. According to the information published on CNN Money, the 17 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for General Motors Co have a median target of 45.00, with a high estimate of 55.00 and a low estimate of 32.00. The median estimate represents a +23.97% increase from the last price of 36.30.