Ford chairman Bill Ford Jr is to be the subject of an internal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the allocation to him of shares in Goldman Sachs – the investment bank which has taken $90m in fees from the carmaker since 1996.

According to the New York Times, the Ford Motor Company's board of directors has announced that it is to set up a committee to look into the share allocation.

The move follows the board's receipt of a letter from a lawyer representing Ford shareholder Roger Berger in which he asks that the chairman sells the 40,000 Goldman Sachs shares to Ford Motor Company at the $53 price he paid for them.

The newspaper says Mr Berger is not aiming to recover his lost investment in Ford but is looking to encourage “better corporate governance” by the company. The newspaper points out that Bill Ford has a longstanding business relationship with Goldman Sachs president John L. Thornton – and that there have been personal ties between them since prep school days in the 1970s.

If Bill Ford refuses to sell those shares, the NYT says that the next step could be a formal lawsuit.