How much can we chop away while keeping the body alive?

The U.S. Justice Department’s plans for Volkswagen’s criminal fine is like a horror movie, only with corporate finances playing the role of a writhing human subject.

According to two sources close to the negotiations, the DOJ wants to extract as much monetary lifeblood from the automaker as possible, while keeping the company afloat, Bloomberg reports. (Read More…)

Federal investigators probing Fiat Chrysler Automobiles for alleged sales tampering have uncovered a strange phrase that they believe is a code word.

According to the Wall Street Journal, company executives would sometimes call up regional managers and dealers and utter a specific phrase. Investigators believe this was a signal for dealers to go ahead and boost end-of-month sales in any way necessary. (Read More…)

A former employee, who was fired after news of Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal broke, is claiming in a lawsuit that he was let go from the automaker after noticing data related to the scandal was being deleted, several German language outlets are reporting (via Automotive News).

The lawsuit, filed by a former employee of Volkswagen Group of America, is the first possible evidence made public so far of a good, old fashioned cover up on this side of the Atlantic.

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The $360 million settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Hyundai and Kia for overstating fuel economy figures was approved Tuesday by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

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The United States Department of Justice announced Friday that local and state law enforcement can no longer use federal programs to seize the assets of those believed to have committed a crime without conviction.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced Thursday that it would fine Honda $70 million “for failing to report death and injury data in a timely manner.”

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At present, 20 Japanese executives are charged with price-fixing by the U.S. Department of Justice. Extradition, however, is proving hard to accomplish.

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Being an asterisk regarding fuel economy numbers isn’t the only penance Hyundai and Kia must pay: The U.S. Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board dropped a collective $300 million penalty on the South Korean brands for mistating fuel economy numbers on their respective 2011-2013 lineups.

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While the parent company goes through the federal ringer over product safety, GM Financial is under the gun after receiving a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding potential deceptive practices in subprime lending.

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Though under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service over abode issues, Delphi says it is not under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice over its part of the February 2014 General Motors ignition recall.

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Detroit Free Press reports the U.S. Treasury lost $11.2 billion in taxpayer money from the rescue of General Motors back in 2008, up from the $10.3 billion estimated after the agency sold its remaining shares back in early December 2013. Part of the final figure came as a write-off of an $826 million “administrative claim,” which was found in a report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The overall figure pales in comparison to the $50.2 billion given by both Bush and Obama administrations between 2008 and 2009 to GM as the automaker struggled through its financial crisis at the onset of the Great Recession.

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General Motors is facing two separate lawsuits related to failures of the ignition switch recalled last month, while also preparing to bring their case before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee next month, led by a representative who honed his skills upon Firestone.

Meanwhile, reports of a quiet swap between the defective ignition switch and an improved switch in 2006 – a swap that may have violated internal protocols -may have serious repercussions for GM and now-bankrupt supplier Delphi.

Finally, a test drive gone wrong results in a GMC Yukon left to burn, whose prompt investigation is only the beginning of a long learning process in how GM handles safety in the future.

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Source: United States Department of Justice

Nine Japanese auto suppliers and two executives have agreed to plead guilty and pay more than $740 million in fines for participating in a price fixing conspiracy, the U.S. Department of Justice said yesterday. The two executives, one an American citizen, the other Japanese, will have to serve prison terms. According to the DoJ, thirty different components were involved and they were sold to all three domestic automakers as well as the U.S. operations of Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Toyota and Fuji Heavy Industries, which owns the Subaru brand. The automakers have cooperated with the investigation. More than 25 million vehicles sold in the U.S. were affected by the conspiracy, raising costs to automakers and consumers alike, U.S. Attorney General Eric holder told a press conference in Washington yesterday. (Read More…)