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Appeals court rejects GM's bid to remove judge from Fiat Chrysler lawsuit

A U.S. appeals court on Monday denied General Motors' petition to remove a lower court judge from its racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, but said the companies' heads need not meet to settle the issue. The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge Paul Borman abused his discretion by requiring GM CEO Mary Barra and FCA's head, Mike Manley, to meet face-to-face for reasons unrelated to the case, and without taking into account the risks of travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. The district judge's order for the parties to report back to the court in only eight days was also unwarranted, the appeals court said. Borman in June ordered Barra and Manley to meet by July 1, and later amended his order to allow other officials in their place. "We do not mean to say, however, that the district judge may not order a pretrial settlement conference and/or mediation in the normal course," the appeals court said in a filing. The court in June stayed Borman's order requiring officials from the two firms to resolve the lawsuit, and on Monday rejected GM's request for a new judge to oversee the case, saying Borman's desire for a quick settlement was "not so extreme" that he needed to be replaced. GM said in a statement it was grateful that the court had quickly reviewed and granted its petition for a writ of mandamus, that is, setting aside the requirement to meet. However, the company did not comment on the rejection of its request to reassign the case to another judge. GM sued FCA last year, accusing the Italian-American company's executives of bribing United Auto Workers union officials to secure labor agreements that put GM at a disadvantage. Government/Legal Chrysler Fiat GM

FCA's profit rises ahead of Peugeot merger

MILAN — Fiat Chrysler (FCA) posted a 7% rise in fourth-quarter profit on Thursday, boosted by strong business in North America and better results in Latin America as it heads into a merger with France's PSA. The Italian-American carmaker said adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) rose to 2.12 billion euros ($2.3 billion), in line with a 2.11 billion forecast in Reuters poll of analysts. That left its adjusted operating profit for the year at 6.67 billion euros ($7.34 billion), just shy of its target of over 6.7 billion euros. Its adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 6.2%, in line with its target of more than 6.1%. A trader said Fiat Chrysler results were "a touch above" expectations and the carmaker's shares in Milan were up 3.4% at 1300 GMT following the results. Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot maker PSA agreed in December to combine forces in a $50 billion deal to create the world's No. 4 carmaker, in response to slower global demand and the mounting cost of making cleaner cars amid tighter emissions rules. Chief Executive Mike Manley said last month that talks with PSA were progressing well and that he hoped to complete the deal by early 2021. FCA reiterated its plan to boost adjusted EBIT to above 7 billion euros ($7.7 billion) this year. In slides prepared for an analyst call, FCA said it was monitoring the global impact of coronavirus in China. FCA operates in the country through a loss-making joint venture with Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) and has a 0.35% share of the Chinese passenger car market. Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari; Additional reporting by Danilo Masoni; Editing by Stephen Jewkes, Jason Neely and David Clarke. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Honda may recall up to 1M vehicles for airbag issue, following Toyota's lead

It seems Toyota won't be the only one recalling the faulty Takata airbag inflators for long. Honda insiders in Japan claim that the company is getting close to announcing its own worldwide campaign that would begin before the end of June.
Unnamed sources close to Honda in Japan tell Automotive News that the company is pursuing an internal investigation into possibly affected models and is working with Takata to gather more information. They claim that it could involve even more than the 1.14 million cars worldwide that the automaker covered under the first recall for the problem in April 2013, including 561,000 vehicles in the US.
Toyota jumpstarted this process last week when it recalled over 2 million cars worldwide, including 844,277 in the US. Soon after, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began a preliminary evaluation into the issue following six reported incidents, and started assembling data about potentially affected models from Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Chrysler. NHTSA also began investigating Takata itself.