Bloomberg/Tokyo
Takata Corp, the Japanese maker of air bags that have led to millions of car recalls worldwide, will be fined $14,000 for each day it fails to cooperate with a US investigation into the part defect.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said yesterday his agency has requested documents and other data from Takata about its air bags, and the company hasn’t fully complied. The fines could reach a maximum of $70mn based on US law.
Regulators are investigating air bag inflators that may malfunction, deploying with so much force that the part breaks and hurls metal shrapnel at the car’s occupants. At least five fatalities in the US and more than 100 injuries have been reported.
“Safety is a shared responsibility and Takata’s failure to fully cooperate with our investigation is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Foxx said in a
statement.
Foxx also said he would ask Congress to pass a legislative proposal from the White House that would give regulators more power to discipline automotive companies for lapses in safety.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked Takata to answer questions in separate special orders last year on October 30 and November 18, the agency said in a letter to the Tokyo-based parts maker. Takata has produced more than 2.4mn pages of documents but didn’t respond to requests for clarification on the agency’s specific questions, according to NHTSA.
“We have concluded that Takata is neither being forthcoming with the information that is it legally obligated to supply, nor is it being cooperative in aiding NHTSA’s ongoing investigation of a potentially serious safety defect” the agency said.
Last year NHTSA issued similar fines against General Motors Co for failing to respond to requests for information about an investigation into an ignition-switch defect. GM eventually agreed to a consent order ending the fines and the agency’s investigation, promising to submit to added oversight as it overhauled its defect investigation
practices.
Automakers face fines of $7,000 per day for not abiding by a US law known as the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation Act, which requires the companies to tell regulators about customer injuries, lawsuits, warranty claims and
complaints.
The maximum civil penalty is capped by Congress at $35mn. Because NHTSA issued two special orders to Takata, the company faces a combined fine of $14,000 per day up to a final maximum penalty of $70mn.
