Internal Toyota documents reveal that the carmaker intentionally held back telling vehicle and testing evidence in lawsuits filed by injured Toyota drivers says House oversight committee Chairman Edolphus Towns.
The house lawmaker composed a letter to the automaker’s chief North American executive, Yoshimi Inaba, saying the company withheld testing data on possible troubles with their vehicles. According to Towns, Toyota elected to pay huge settlements with plaintiffs in order to dodge the disclosure of well-kept information within the company referred to as the "Books of Knowledge."
Toyota is denying it acted improperly in the suits and is prepared to address the allegations made by Towns. They added that denying access to documents requested in lawsuits is not out of the ordinary for large companies.
Towns requested that the Toyota executive answer on account of matters broached by the documents no later than March 12.
In a statement Toyota said, “we take appropriate steps to maintain the confidentiality of competitive business information and trade secrets. "
Toyota has turned over thousands of documents to the court in an investigation of an 8.5 million-vehicle recall. A third hearing for the company before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation is scheduled for next week. In the earlier two hearings lawmakers and federal safety regulators have faulted Toyota with intentionally hiding issues with sudden, involuntary acceleration.
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