Takata Corporation which is currently recalling faulty and dangerous car airbags is now being fined by US car safety regulators $70 million on Tuesday.
The penalty came on the heels of the allegation that the company hid evidence that its airbags had a tendency to explode, risking passengers on board.
The firm's airbags have been linked to eight deaths and a hundred injuries worldwide, reported Boston Herald.
Takata Corporation's car airbags can explode and hurl shrapnels at the people inside the car in a crash. The company had recalled 23.4 million driver and passenger side airbags from 19.2 million U.S. vehicles from 12 car makers.
The Japanese firm is under a five-year agreement with the US government to phase out air bag inflators that has ammonium nitrate, the main culprit for the explosions.
This includes replacement of all the airbags already in use, unless the company can strongly prove the the stuff are safe. If the company fails to abide by the terms, the National Traffic Safety Administration will increase the penalty to $200m.
Mark Rosekind, NHTSA administrator said the firm's misconduct started in 2009 at least, when it did not tell the agency about the problem.
Carmakers are obliged to inform NHTSA of defects within five days of discovering them. According to the regulators, for years, Takata Corporation provided them with "selective, incomplete or inaccurate data."
Takata Corporation admitted it was aware of the defective car airbags but resisted recall by not telling NHTSA.
"Delay, misdirection and refusal to acknowledge the truth allowed a serious problem to become a massive crisis," commented Anthony Foxx, transportation secretary.
Shigehisa Takada, Takata's chief executive, said they regretted the circumstances leading to the NHTSA agreement and are determined to develop new inflators.
The settlement "would "enable us to focus on rebuilding the trust of auto makers, regulators and the driving public," he said.
According to Breaking News, Takata Corporation still faces a criminal investigation and hundreds of lawsuits. Its biggest customer, Honda, basically sacked it on Tuesday as all airbag-related deaths reported have been inside Honda vehicles.
Takata still faces hundreds of lawsuits and a federal criminal investigation.
