French car dealer charged over Takata airbag injury

A car dealer has been charged over failures that led to a driver being injured when a faulty Takata airbag sprayed him with metal fragments, a source said Friday, the first criminal charges in France in a massive recall scandal.

A number of car models have been under a series of recall orders since 2014 in France over airbags produced by the Japanese company that are at risk of injuring or killing drivers when they deploy.

Deaths and investigations

At least 18 people in France are suspected to have been killed by faulty Takata airbags and in June the latest recall ordered 1.7 million vehicles off the road until replaced.

A number of investigations were under way in France into suspicions of fraud and endangerment, but no charges had been publicly disclosed.

However, a source told AFP an investigating magistrate in the French island of La Reunion in March charged a car dealership for failing to have warned a driver whose vehicle had been recalled and who was then subsequently injured.

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Dealership denies responsibility

The dealership has denied responsibility, saying according to the source it did not have the contact information for clients of a separate dealership it had acquired.

In France the filing of criminal charges does not mean the case will proceed to court.

The car dealership’s lawyer said he intends to show his client undertook reasonable efforts given that in 2020 the severity of the danger posed by the airbags wasn’t known, and faulted the French state for not providing the contact information for the car owners.

The Takata brand disappeared in 2018 following a bankruptcy in the wake of the airbag scandal, which has affected almost every major global automaker and led to millions of cars being recalled.

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