Report: Toyota 'whistleblower' documents trouble House panel
 

<p>Filed under: <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/government-legal/" rel="tag">Government/Legal</a>, <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/recalls-tsbs/" rel="tag">Recalls</a>, <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/safety/" rel="tag">Safety</a>, <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/toyota/" rel="tag">Toyota</a></p><a href="http://detnews.com/article/20100226/AUTO01/2260441/House-panel-calls-Toyota-whistleblower-documents--troubling-"><img vspace="4" hspace="0" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2010/02/hkg3257749opt.jpg" /></a><br />
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And the saga continues. According to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Ed Towns (D-N.Y.), <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/19/report-house-subcommittee-petitions-toyota-for-secret-documents/">documents obtained by the committee under subpoena from Dimitrios Biller</a> - managing counsel in the product liability group of <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/make/toyota">Toyota</a> Motor Sales USA from April 2003 to September 2007 - "indicate Toyota deliberately withheld records that it was legally required to produce in response to discovery orders in litigation."<br />
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Towns further says that many such documents "concern 'rollover' cases in which a driver or passenger was injured, including cases where victims were paralyzed." In a letter sent to Yoshimi Inaba, president of Toyota's operations in North America, Towns wrote:<br />
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<div><em>In sum, the Biller documents indicate a systematic disregard for the law and routine violation of court discovery orders in litigation. People injured in crashes involving Toyota vehicles may have been injured a second time when Toyota failed to produce relevant evidence in court... Moreover, this also raises very serious questions as to whether Toyota has also withheld substantial, relevant information from NHTSA.</em></div>
</blockquote>It has also come out that Toyota keeps so-called "Books of Knowledge" containing information from Toyota engineers on internal design and testing data. So closely held was this information that the automaker supposedly agreed to multimillion-dollar civic settlements to safeguard the data. Serious charges indeed, and Towns has given Toyota until Friday, March 12th, to respond.<br />
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[Source: <a href="http://detnews.com/article/20100226/AUTO01/2260441/House-panel-calls-Toyota-whistleblower-documents--troubling-">The Detroit News</a> | Image: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty]<p style="padding:5px;backgr ound:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"><a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/26/report-toyota-whistleblower-documents-trouble-house-panel/">Report: Toyota 'whistleblower' documents trouble House panel</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.autoblog.com">Autoblo g</a> on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our <a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds</a>.</p><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><a href=http://detnews.com/article/20100226/AUTO01/2260441/House-panel-calls-Toyota-whistleblower-documents--troubling->Read</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/26/report-toyota-whistleblower-documents-trouble-house-panel/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/19375718/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/26/report-toyota-whistleblower-documents-trouble-house-panel/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a>

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