Toyota has been fined $1.2 Bil for lying about the danger of their vehicles' unintended acceleration defect.
The U.S. Department of Justice has officially concluded its criminal investigation into Toyota Motor Company regarding the widespread incidents of unintended vehicle acceleration that caused panic for Toyota owners between 2009 and 2010. Those incidents produced one of the largest consumer recalls in the history of the automotive industry. Today, we can say for certain that Toyota intentionally concealed information and misled the public about the safety issues behind these recalls.
Our years-long criminal investigation examined the way the automaker disclosed complaints about problems of sudden acceleration associated with many of its most popular Toyota and Lexus models. Rather than promptly disclosing and correcting safety issues about which they were aware, Toyota made misleading public statements to consumers and gave inaccurate facts to Members of Congress. And they concealed from federal regulators the extent of problems that some consumers encountered with sticking gas pedals and unsecured or incompatible floor mats that could cause these unintended acceleration episodes. While Toyota conducted a limited recall of some vehicles with floor mat issues in September 2009, the company delayed a broader recall until early 2010 - despite internal tests warning of the dangers posed by other, unrecalled vehicle models. As Toyota admits in the Statement of Facts filed alongside the criminal information in this case, the company “made these misleading statements and undertook these actions of concealment as part of efforts to defend its brand.” In other words, Toyota confronted a public safety emergency as if it were a simple public relations problem. And they mounted this coverup despite widely-documented incidents, and even tragic accidents, like the one that took the lives of an off-duty California Highway Patrol Officer and members of his family. As part of the resolution of this case, Toyota will fully admit wrongdoing. It will pay a financial penalty of $1.2 billion. And going forward, the company will submit to rigorous review by an independent monitor that will examine and assess the manner in which Toyota reports safety issues to the public and its regulator.
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