General Motors is turning to an old friend to run its global communications as it deals with a number of investigations regarding its controversial recall of defective ignition switches in over 2 million vehicles.

The No. 1 automaker in the U.S. named Tony Cervone its senior vice president of global communications on May 19, replacing Selim Bingol, who left the company back in April.

Cervone, 51, had spent 10 years as part of GM's public relations team, and lead communications in Europe at one point, according to Reuters.

He joined GM after leaving Chrysler, and then left the automaker to join United Airlines.

Cervone was executive vice president of group communications for Volkswagen Group of America. 

GM has been forced to deal with a number of public relations issues brought on due to the way it handled fault ignition switches linked to at least 13 deaths and the recall of 2.6 million vehicles.

The issue led to a record fine by U.S. safety regulators last week.

Vehicles affected by the recall includes the: 2005-'07 Chevrolet Cobalt, 2006-'07 Chevrolet HHR and Pontiac Solstice, 2007 Pontiac G5 and Saturn Sky and 2003-'07 Saturn Ion.

The automaker didn't recall affected vehicles until earlier this year despite first noticing the issue back in 2001.

Additional information regarding the recall can be found at GM's ignition switch recall website.

GM is also dealing with investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, Congress, the SEC and a number of states, according to Reuters. 

See Now: OnePlus 6: How Different Will It Be From OnePlus 5?