General Motors Co. agreed to pay a $35 million fine to settle a U.S. auto-safety investigation that found GM had schemed to keep secret its information on faulty ignition switches installed on 2.6 million vehicles, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. U.S. regulators for the first time disclosed details of the probe, including revealing that the Detroit company had coached workers against using "defect" and "Corvair-like" in communications. They also said the nation's largest auto maker had information that should have allowed it in 2009 to link the defective switches to air bags not inflating during crashes. The automaker's "decision making, structure and process stood in the way" of communicating safety problems, said David Friedman, acting administrator of auto-safety regulator National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. GM's employee training even "discouraged workers from using terms like defect, dangerous and safety related," he added.
