The Prancing Horse is surely making the headlines these past few weeks. It started with the ousting of its president, Luca di Montezemolo, by the FCA Group head-honcho Sergio Marchionne, and then continued with the split from the rest of the group and the listing of a 10 percent of its stakes at the NYSE.
Not everything is rosy, though: according to La Republica, the US government slammed Ferrari SpA with a US$3.5 million fine for failing to submit reports concerning vehicle defects, injuries and customer complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as requested by law. This is the biggest fine ever imposed on a car maker for this kind of violation.
“There is no excuse for failing to follow laws created to keep drivers safe”, said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. Some of the reports that were never files with the NHTSA were three fatalities: a 2005 crash in Illinois involving a 360 Spider, a 2006 accident in Germany involving a F430 and a 2009 F430 Spider crash in California.
The NHTSA also revealed that Ferrari hadn’t submitted the “early warning reports”, which are used by the agency to monitor the frequency and severity of safety issues, since 2011.
Ferrari conceded to the violations, did not contest the penalty and additionally agreed to submit the past three years’ missing documents of incidents and train its employees on US reporting procedures: “Ferrari has already begun implementation of new procedures to ensure compliance in the future”, commented the company’s director of US communications Krista Florin.
By Andrew Tsaousis
Photo Gallery
