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Court ruling to delay Fiat's Chrysler buyout?

We've already reported on the attempts of Fiat to purchase the remaining 41.5-percent stake in Chrysler, currently owned by the United Auto Workers' VEBA healthcare trust. And while the issues still aren't resolved, Fiat has received both a bit of good news and a bit of bad news from a Delaware judge.
The good news is that the court ruled in favor on two key arguments of Fiat's, relating to what is a fair price for the Chrysler shares. The rulings essentially slash half a billion dollars off the price of the 54,000 shares owned by VEBA, according to a report from Reuters.
The bad news is that this makes the UAW an even more difficult opponent in negotiations. Its VEBA fund is meant to cover ever escalating retiree healthcare costs, so naturally, the UAW wants to get as much money as possible. Losing a big chunk of cash isn't likely to make the union more cooperative.

Fiat shareholders green-light Chrysler merger, end of an Italian era

Fiat has just taken a major step away from its Italian heritage, as shareholders officially approved the company's merger with Chrysler. That move will lead to the formation of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, a Dutch company based in Great Britain and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, according to Automotive News Europe.
The company captured the two-thirds majority at a special shareholders meeting, although there are still a few situations that could defeat the movement. According to ANE, roughly eight percent of shareholders opposed the merger, which is a group large enough to defeat the plan, should they all exercise their exit rights outlined in the merger conditions.
Meanwhile, Fiat Chairman John Elkann (pictured above, right, with CEO Sergio Marchionne and Ferrari Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo), the great-great-grandson of Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli, reaffirmed his family's commitment to the company beyond the merger. Exor, the Agnelli family's holding company, still maintains a 30-percent stake in Fiat.

Fiat Chrysler to pay $40 million fine for inflating sales numbers

DETROIT — Fiat Chrysler is paying $40 million to settle with U.S. securities regulators who say the automaker misled investors by overstating its monthly sales numbers over a five-year period. The Italian-American company inflated sales by paying dealers to report fake numbers from 2012 to 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a complaint. Fiat Chrysler agreed to pay the civil penalty and to stop violating anti-fraud, reporting and internal accounting control regulations, the SEC said Friday in a statement. The automaker did not admit or deny the agency's allegations, the statement said. "This case underscores the need for companies to truthfully disclose their key performance indicators," Antonia Chion, associate director in the SEC's Enforcement Division, said in the statement. She noted that the new vehicle sales figures give investors insight into the demand for an automaker's products, a key to assessing the company's performance. Fiat Chrysler said it has reviewed and refined its sales reporting procedures. It said the payment will not have a large impact on its financial statements. The agency said the automaker boasted about a streak of year-over-year sales increases into 2016, when the streak actually was broken in September of 2013. When the company disclosed the sales scheme in 2016, it said that it had a "reserve" stock of cars that had been shipped to big fleet buyers such as rental car companies but not recorded as sales. The SEC said employees called this database of actual but unreported sales the "cookie jar." The company dipped into those sales to stop the streak from ending, or when it would have missed other sales targets. Fiat Chrysler said it now records sales as soon as vehicles are shipped to customers. It has also take steps to ensure that a sale is immediately subtracted from its books when it finds out the deal was scuttled because the buyer backed out or couldn't get financing. The SEC probe is another in a long string of legal troubles for Fiat Chrysler. It also faces federal investigations into illegal payments to union officials through a training center, and a criminal probe into allegations that its diesel-powered trucks were programmed to cheat on emissions tests. The company has denied cheating, but federal prosecutors charged an engineer earlier this week and said he conspired with others. In June, Fiat Chrysler's U.S.