Rolls-Royce North America

Rolls-Royce North America, Inc. is a subsidiary of Rolls-Royce plc involved principally with providing management direction and corporate support for all Rolls-Royce businesses and operations in North America, encompassing more than 7,000 employees at 66 locations across the U.S. and Canada. Their headquarters are currently in Reston, Virginia[1] after a move from nearby Chantilly, Virginia.

The most significant part of Rolls-Royce North America is Rolls-Royce Corporation, formerly the Allison Engine Company. Other subsidiaries include:

LibertyWorks

The Allison Advanced Development Company (also known as LibertyWorks) was established in 1995 as a result of Rolls-Royce plc's acquisition of the Allison Engine Company. As well as establishing a proxy board for Allison, Rolls-Royce was required to vest Allison's classified projects in Allison Advanced Development Company. In 2005, Rolls-Royce changed the name to Rolls-Royce North American Technologies.[2]

Marine Propulsion Pods Defects

In 2011, a Miami jury concluded [3] that Rolls-Royce should pay Carnival Corp. $24 million as a result of problems with the Rolls-Royce Mermaid pod propulsion system, which powers Queen Mary 2, the premier ship in Carnival's fleet. The jury agreed that Rolls-Royce was guilty of fraud and negligent misrepresentation in connection with the Mermaid pod bearings that were used on the cruise ship. The jury also found that Rolls-Royce provided defective replacement bearings in 2005 and 2006, according to the verdict form. [4] US District Judge Patricia Seitz said that the jurors asked her why the case ever went to trial: "The first question they had was why didn't these people settle when they have to work together." Seitz also stated that she regarded the trial as a potential "bellwether for lawsuits" filed by other cruise lines that also found fault with Rolls-Royce's pod system.

In 2010, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. reached a settlement with Rolls-Royce over the pod-propulsion system on Celebrity Cruises' Millennium-class ships that would generate a net increase of approximately $65 million in income for the company. [5]

Alleged scandal involving quality control fraud

Rolls-Royce Rejects Claims of Cover-Up of Engine Defects

July 5, 2013 Rolls-Royce "cut corners on quality-control requirements" and "lied to" customers, two former employees have alleged in a US lawsuit. The company is also claimed to have "routinely used defective parts designated as "scrap only" and concealed internal records of potentially dangerous defects in its engine making process. The incendiary allegations are made in a lawsuit filed in the district court for the Southern District of Indiana by two former quality-control officers at Rolls-Royce Corp, part of the UK aerospace group's American operations. It is the legal filing in a long-running dispute brought by Thomas McArtor, a senior quality-control officer from 2003 to 2006 at Rolls' Indianapolis plant, its main US facility. His original complaint in 2008 was joined in 2011 by a second former employee, Keith Ramsey, a quality-control officer who oversaw key parts of the manufacturing and assembly process. Mr. Ramsay alleges he was dismissed for "refusing to cooperate" in the company's "knowing deviations from its quality-control plan". The pair claim that Rolls routinely concealed thousands of defects in engines it sold to clients including the US Department of Defense, collating them in a "secret set of books". The duo are now challenging a court order that prevents them releasing information they claim reveals what Rolls allegedly concealed.[6] The lawsuit comes at a difficult time for Rolls, which was recently taken to task by Australian safety regulators for failing to spot a problem which led to one of its engines on board a Qantas A380 exploding shortly after taking off from Singapore in November 2010. The report criticised the culture at Rolls’ Hucknall plant in the UK, saying it was “considered acceptable to not declare what manufacturing personnel determined to be ‘minor’ non-conformances in manufactured components”.

The Rolls Royce parent company in the UK has been under investigation for bribery and fraud charges involving China and Indonesia. In Spring 2013, the Serious Fraud Office was considering a civil settlement with Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (RR.LN) that would halt an investigation into alleged bribery in Indonesia, China and other countries, the Financial Times in London reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.[7]

In May 2013, Mark King, the chief of Rolls Royce aerospace business resigned unexpectedly and suddenly amid much speculation. Rolls-Royce is the world’s second-largest maker of aircraft engines after General Electric of the United States. [8]

References

  1. ↑ Rolls-Royce in North America - Key locations
  2. ↑ official site
  3. ↑ http://www.oldsaltblog.com/2011/01/the-tale-of-the-mermaid-pods-carnival-awarded-24-million-in-lawsuit-with-rolls-royce/
  4. ↑ http://www.professionalmariner.com/March-2011/Jury-sides-with-Carnival-over-problems-with-Rolls-Royce-pod-propulsion-system/
  5. ↑ http://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/RCCL-Rolls-Royce-settle-Celebrity-pods-lawsuit
  6. ↑ "Rolls-Royce 'hid engine defects', claims US lawsuit". Telegraph. Retrieved 2014-03-31.
  7. ↑ Thompson, Mark (2012-12-06). "Rolls-Royce in China corruption probe - Dec. 6, 2012". Money.cnn.com. Retrieved 2014-03-31.
  8. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/business/global/rolls-royce-aerospace-chief-mark-king-resigns.html

External links

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