Inspired By Quadrangle Scandal, Republicans Call For Investigation Into Rattner's Delphi Dealings

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

When former auto task force boss Steve Rattner’s former firm Quadrangle recently settled a “pay-to-play” corruption investigation, it threw Rattner under the bus, saying:

We wholly disavow the conduct engaged in by Steve Rattner, who hired the New York State Comptroller’s political consultant, Hank Morris, to arrange an investment from the New York State Common Retirement Fund. It is our understanding that Mr. Rattner also arranged a DVD distribution deal for a movie produced by the Chief Investment Officer’s brother in the middle of the investment decision-making process. That conduct was inappropriate, wrong, and unethical. Mr. Rattner is no longer with the firm and is not a part of today’s settlement. Quadrangle will fully cooperate in the Attorney General’s ongoing investigation of Mr. Rattner and others.

According to the DetN, that stinging indictment by Rattner’s former firm has inspired House Republicans to call for an investigation into whether Rattner was behind a deal in which some Delphi retirees lost their pensions while others didn’t.



A letter from Reps Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Christopher Lee (R-NY) to the House Oversight Committee argues that the investigation of Rattner:

[calls] into question the integrity and objectivity of Mr. Rattner’s panel, particularly the decision to allow some Delphi Corp. retirees, including many salaried retirees, to lose their pension benefits through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation while simultaneously protecting the benefits of other Delphi retirees.

However, that deal hardly needs a lot of in-depth investigation to get to the bottom of. As The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explains, GM agreed to “top off” UAW pensions when it spun Delphi off in 1999. However:

The salaried retirees had no such agreement – and, it turns out, neither did employees who belonged to some other unions, including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the International Union of Operating Engineers.

When Delphi dropped those pensions on the PBGC, the 70,000 non-UAW retirees saw their benefits drop by $800m. And why would Steve Rattner have changed any of that? Rogers and Lee are trying to investigate a sin of omission rather than a sin of commission. The original sin in the sad story of Delphi was GM and the UAWs… all Rattner had to do was not fix it.

We sympathize when Rogers says:

It was completely unfair how they were treated… We need to ask some really hard questions about how this happened.

But just because Rattner screwed up at Quadrangle doesn’t prove anything about Delphi. That situation was screwed up long before Steve Rattner arrived.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

More by Edward Niedermeyer

Comments
Join the conversation
 2 comments
  • Ronnie Schreiber Ronnie Schreiber on Apr 29, 2010

    Rattner's a deal maker. I was never able to find out what he was doing at the NAIAS this January, since he supposedly left the PTFOA last summer. Treasury said he wasn't there on their behalf. When I asked him , when he was walking with Sergio Marchionne, about his credentials saying "GM" he said "That's what they gave me."

  • Werewolf34 Werewolf34 on Apr 29, 2010

    Wow, Scumbag hedge fund throws chief scumbag under the train. Film at 11. Were you expecting morals or standing by your guy?

  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
Next