Mubasher: Japan-based Takata Corporation has filed for bankruptcy in Japan and the US on the backdrop of its faulty airbags that led to many deaths around the world.
The reasons behind the damaged airbags remain unknown. Despite the massive size of the recall, considered the largest in the automotive industry, the Japanese firm is still unsure how some of its faulty airbags are still present in cars.
The airbags, believed to have been manufactured between 2000 and 2008 in the firm’s US plant, contained faulty inflators, which sprayed metal shrapnel during a collision or crash.
In January, Takata paid $1 billion in penalties in the US for having covered up information about the faulty airbags. The company also pled guilty to a criminal charge.
The Japanese company also paid $25 million as a fine, $125 million to the persons harmed by the defective airbags, and $850 million to the carmakers that used the airbags.
The US-based Key Safety Systems (KSS) has bought all of Takata's assets, excluding those pertaining to the airbags, at a value of $1.6 billion after the Japanese corporation filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US and took a similar action in its home country Japan.
Takata chairman and CEO Shigehisa Takada said Monday that he will resign his post.
The airbag maker is also facing other legal charges in the US, added to $9 billion in liabilities, involving 10 car manufacturers that had used Takata’s defective airbags.
"Although Takata has been impacted by the global airbag recall, the underlying strength of its skilled employee base, geographic reach, and exceptional steering wheels, seat belts and other safety products have not diminished," the BBC reported, citing KSS chief executive Jason Luo as saying.
Japanese carmakers Honda, Nissan, and Toyota, who were significantly impacted by the faulty airbangs and are still paying for recall costs, told the BBC that they “would continue negotiating” but that it was unlikely that they would get their money back.
Trading on Takata’s shares have been suspended on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the company will be delisted in late July.
The airbag crisis has caused at least 17 deaths worldwide and is believed to have begun in 2004 but was covered up at the ti
