General Motors chief Roger Smith has for the first time spoken publicly about the reasons for paying off Electronic Data Systems founder Ross Perot, in effect saying that when a marriage breaks up you have to pay alimony: he says that GM’s relationship with Perot had broken down irreparably, and that the separation had nothing to do with his public criticisms of GM policy, it was rather because he flouted the company’s rules of corporate governance, refusing to allow GM auditors free access to the books of EDS, and contested GM’s right to set the salaries of EDS executives – he couldn’t accept that he had sold EDS to GM according to Smith.
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