Lawyers for people injured by exploding Takata Corp. air bags told a U.S. bankruptcy court judge yesterday that the company's restructuring plan is being skewed to benefit automakers over victims, Reuters reported. TK Holdings Inc, the U.S. business of Takata, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday due to tens of billions of dollars of liabilities from recalls and lawsuits over its air bags, along with 11 Mexican and U.S. subsidiaries. Most of Takata's obligations are owed to automakers for recalling and replacing millions of its air bags, and the Japanese supplier's restructuring plan relies heavily on financial support from its customers. Several personal-injury lawyers told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon that Takata had made too many concessions to automakers, without investigating the value of their claims. Lawyers for TK Holdings and General Motors Co. argued that the need for financing outweighed the need to investigate the protections granted to the automakers, which could be investigated later. Authorities have linked 16 deaths, mostly in the United States, and more than 180 injuries to explosions of Takata air bag inflators made with ammonium nitrate that became volatile with age and prolonged exposure to heat.
