The air bag corporation Takata Corporation in Japan will plead guilty to criminal wrongdoing. Takata and the U.S. Justice Department agreed to a $1 billion settlement after faulty airbags led to the deaths of 16 people. In the settlement, Takata pays $25 million in fines as well as $125 million in compensations of victims and $850 million to the automakers for compensation.
A few of the automakers looking for compensation are Honda Motors as well as nineteen others including Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles who had to recall many vehicles with defected inflators.
Along with pleading guilty to criminal wrongdoing, the company pleads guilty to wire fraud. This means that gave the U.S. regulators false testing information. Back in 2015 the company openly admitted to awareness of defaulted air bags. However, even though they were aware of the issue with the airbags, they did nothing to resolve on time That situation warranted a $70 million settlement between Takata and the U.S.
Takata revealed that I gave the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) “selective, incomplete, ad inaccurate data” for as long as six years. The company also did the same thing with automakers.
In the United States, defective air bags injured more than 184 people. The inflators in the air bags explode with extreme force. This causes bits of metal to fly at passengers. A majority of the deaths that resulted due to this defect were in minor accidents that victims might have survived. One includes a seventeen-year-old high schooler who died in Texas last year.
Of the 11 deaths that occurred due to air back defection in the United States, most of them occurred in Honda cars. The NHTSA says that recalls of nearly 42 million cars would eventually take place. Seventy million Takata air bags inflators would be recalled as well. The combination of the two would lead to the largest safety recall in U.S. history.
The NHTSA continues to urge automakers to speed up the rate of replacing all Takata air bags. It seems the company only replaced one-third of the defected air bags. Which means that there are still 30 million vehicles that are unsafe. Back in the summer, the NHTSA cautioned drivers that almost 300,000 of Takata’s inflators remained in unfixed, recalled Hondas.
Two senators believe the Department of Justice penalizes the company and not its executives. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Edward Markey said in a statement that if Takata “files for bankruptcy, its new creditors, and not Takata, would be responsible for paying criminal fines on the company’s behalf.”
Comment Template