General Motors Corp bought Electronic Data Systems Corp in part so that it could apply the skills of Ross Perot’s company to its own operations, but it doesn’t seem to have done it much good: accentuating the impression that GM is a company that can’t press the gas pedal and steer at the same time, it finds that it has been paying finance to the tune of $400m on cars that didn’t exist – John McNamara has been charged with mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering after GM won a court order to shut down McNamara Buick, Pontiac, GMC Truck Inc in Port Jefferson Station, New York, claiming that the firm had borrowed $436.7m for cars that didn’t exist – seems that GM’s systems were inadequate to track its car serial numbers until it was too late; McNamara, a cool customer, readily came up with the $300m bail ordered by the court.
