Legal News

Toyota Withheld Docs in Rollover Cases, Says Former In-Houser

By Ashby Jones

Just when we thought the Toyota situation couldn’t get any thornier comes news of this: According to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, documents recently received by the committee show that Toyota deliberately withheld records in “rollover” litigation and other cases and engaged in a “systematic disregard for the law.” Click here for the WSJ story.

The documents, obtained as part of a subpoena issued by the House committee, were produced by Dimitrios Biller, a former in-house lawyer for Toyota who is now involved in litigation with the auto maker.

In this letter to Yoshimi Inaba, chief of Toyota’s North America operations, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D., N.Y.), the Oversight Committee chairman, demanded answers about the documents.

“We have reviewed these documents and found evidence that Toyota deliberately withheld relevant electronic records that it was legally required to produce in response to discovery orders in litigation,” according to the letter.

A Toyota spokeswoman said Friday Toyota takes its legal obligations seriously “and strives to maintain the highest professional and ethical standards in its legal and regulatory practices. ”

“It is not uncommon, however, for companies to object to certain demands for documents made in litigation,” said the spokeswoman, Cindy Knight. “Consistent with that philosophy, we take appropriate steps to maintain the confidentiality of competitive business information and trade secrets. ”

She said Toyota was confident it had acted appropriate with respect to product liability litigation.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 26, 2010 (boomark / email).