The supplier had been hit with $14,000 daily fines — the maximum allowed by law — for failing to properly comply with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s requests. The agency accused the company of dumping millions of pages of documents without any explanation, ignoring a specific order to organize the information and create a guide for investigators.
“They’re starting to become forthcoming,” NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind told Reuters. “My understanding is that yesterday, things started changing around.”
Former Takata engineers have separately accused the company of attempting to cover up incriminating evidence from internal tests years ago when problems surrounding the inflators first began to surface. If the allegations are confirmed, the company could face steeper fines.
Federal auto safety regulators have continued to use the Takata fiasco in a push for more funding and much higher fine caps, arguing that the current $35-million limit is ineffective against companies that now post billions in annual revenue.
‘It’s clear to any unbiased observer that the law does not currently provide our agency with sufficient authority to hold bad actors fully accountable,” Rosekind said.
The agency is also considering using a rarely-invoked authority to force additional third-party suppliers to build replacements for Takata’s defective components, as millions of parts are still needed to fix the large fleet of affected vehicles sold in the US market.
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