Toyota
Toyota reached a settlement with the U.S. government on Thursday over a decade of non-compliance with the Clean Air Act reporting. According to the law, defects or reminders that affect equipment for the emission of vehicles must be reported to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But, says EPA Assistant Administrator Susan Bodine, “[f]or for a decade, Toyota did not report mandatory information about possible defects in their cars to the EPA, which kept the agency in the dark and evaded surveillance. EPA considers this failure to be a serious violation of the Clean Air Act. ‘
Manufacturers are required to submit emission error information reports if they know of an emission error affecting at least 25 or more vehicles (or engines) of a particular model in a particular model year. They must also submit voluntary recall reports to resolve an issue with emissions, as well as quarterly reports on the progress of the recall.
However, the Department of Justice says that Toyota, which started in 2005, delayed the submission of somewhere around 78 reports of emission defects in 2005 – which affected millions of vehicles during this time – and many of them in 2015 in the lap of the EPA dumped. there were 20 reminder reports (and 200 quarterly reports) that were never submitted.
The DOJ says that Toyota in Japan has chosen to impose a weaker reporting requirement for the emission errors set by the California Air Board, and that they would only submit reports to the EPA if it also complies with the CARB.
Toyota has agreed with the government and acknowledged responsibility for this lost decade of reporting. As a result, it will pay a $ 180 million civil fine, the largest such fine ever issued for violating this requirement of the Clean Air Act.