Feds fine Takata max over airbags; threaten more action

The U.S. government announced this morning that it is fining Japan-based auto-safety-equipment company Takata $14,000 a day, starting today, for refusing to cooperate with a probe of faulty air bags by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

That's the maximum $7,000 per day for violating two orders from NHTSA. The agency is seeking approval from Congress to boost the maximum daily fine to $25,000 in future cases.

Takata's reply: "We are surprised and disappointed ... and we strongly disagree with their characterization that we have not been fully cooperating."

NHTSA also said today it will:

•Demand that Takata executives appear in person to answer questions, instead of submitting written replies.

•Conduct "short notice" inspections at Takata's U.S. headquarters and testing facility at Auburn Hills, Mich.

•Issue a "preservation" order requiring Takata to make the parts under investigation available for testing to NHTSA, automakers and people suing Takata. Takata tried to limit access as part of a South Carolina lawsuit last year. NHTSA also said it expects to have access to any testing done by others.

•Ask the Justice Department to sue Takata in federal court if NHTSA doesn't get what it wants.

Takata has refused to recall cars with the air bags, which can inflate inadvertently, NHTSA says, and can deploy explosively, tearing loose from their mountings and blowing shrapnel into occupants. The equipment company has dragged its feet responding to government demands for information, NHTSA says.

Takata's 10 automaker customers — Honda is the biggest — have recalled vehicles with the possibly faulty Takata bags.

At least five deaths are linked to the bags.The most recent was near Houston last September in a car purchased used that was recalled but hadn't been fixed before being sold as a used car.

NHTSA and others are supporting a measure called GROW America that prohibits recalled vehicles from being rented or sold as used vehicles by dealers, until recall repairs are done.

NHTSA said more than 17 million vehicles have been recalled so far in the U.S. for the Takata bags, starting back in 2008. But as of the end of December, when automakers last reported, only about 2 million were repaired.

"Takata is neither being forthcoming with the information that it is legally obligated to supply, nor is it being cooperative in aiding NHTSA's ongoing investigation of a potentially serious safety defect," the agency said in a letter dated today to a representative of Takata Holdings, the U.S. unit of the big Japan company.

The fine was announced by U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. NHTSA is a unit of Transportation.

"Safety is a shared responsibility ,and Takata's failure to fully cooperate with our investigation is unacceptable and will not be tolerated," Foxx said. "For each day that Takata fails to fully cooperate with our demands, we will hit them with another fine."

He called Takata one of the "bad actors" in the safety world.

"Late last year, NHTSA issued two Special Orders to Takata requiring the company to provide documentation and other material relating to the agency's ongoing investigation. Takata has not fully cooperated with the investigation," the agency said.

Not so, said a response today from Takata.

The air bag company said, "We have provided the agency with almost 2.5 million pages of documents to date. Since the Special Orders were issued, we have been in regular communication with NHTSA staff regarding our ongoing production of documents in response to the Special Orders. We have also been meeting regularly with NHTSA engineers on efforts to identify the root cause of the inflator issue."

Takata insisted it keeps "NHTSA closely informed on the extensive testing efforts we have undertaken." The tests, Takata says, have, so far, "supported our initial view that age and sustained exposure to heat and humidity is a common factor in the small number of inflators that have malfunctioned. In fact, as recently as last week, we met with NHTSA to review the results of these efforts."

NHTSA said it will demand that Takata executives appear, in person, to answer questions rather than submit written documents. And it noted that it has authority to ask the Justice Department to sue Takata in federal court to force a recall or other actions.

The agency declined to say if its earlier solicitation of whistle-blowers from Takata's current or former workers has been successful. "Obviously, I am not able to comment on that at all," spokesman Gordon Trowbridge said.