U.S. appeals court rejects GM racketeering suit against Fiat Chrysler

(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court upheld a 2020 ruling that tossed out a racketeering lawsuit General Motors Co filed against rival Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), now part of Stellantis NV, and former executives.

GM filed the racketeering lawsuit in November 2019, alleging FCA bribed United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials over many years to corrupt the bargaining process and gain advantages, costing GM billions of dollars.

“Even accepting GM’s theory as true, the chain of causation between FCA’s bribes and GM’s injury is still too attenuated,” said the opinion of the three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis)