Legal News

The Toyota Plot Thickens

By Nathan Koppel

We return to the Toyota acceleration madness in light of some big news today ─ none of it good for the auto maker.

First, Toyota confirmed today that it has received subpoenas from a U.S. federal grand jury and the Securities and Exchange Commission, both requesting documents related to sudden unintended acceleration and the braking system of its Prius hybrid. Toyota said it intends to cooperate with the investigations and is preparing its responses to the requests.

Also, Congressmen Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak, who chair committees charged with looking into sudden acceleration issues, sent a pointed letter today to Jim Lentz, Toyota's head of U.S. sales, raising questions about whether the company has addressed acceleration issues in good faith. Here's a WSJ article on the latest developments.

The legislators in the letter say that their review of internal Toyota documents raises "significant concerns," including that Toyota "consistently dismissed the possibility that electronic failures could be responsible for incidents of sudden acceleration."

Toyota, they write, has produced just one report purporting to test and analyze potential electronic causes of sudden acceleration, but the report "appears to have serious flaws," including using "extremely small sample sizes."

Third, they claim, Toyota has issued misleading comments about the adequacy of its recent recalls.

A separate letter today from Waxman and Stupak to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood raises concerns that federal safety regulators “lack the expertise needed to evaluate defects in vehicle electronic controls.”

Click here for the letter to Lentz and here for the letter to LaHood.

The letters set the stage for a potentially dramatic showdown tomorrow in Congress when Lentz and LaHood are set testify.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 22, 2010 (boomark / email).