Overview

• On March 27, a Saint-Pierre judge indicted Leal Réunion for deliberate breach of safety obligations after a May 6, 2020 crash left a BMW driver with serious facial injuries caused by a ruptured Takata airbag.
• A judicial expert found that Leal Réunion did not begin notifying and recalling BMW owners until July 2020, after the accident, citing this delay as a critical “inertia.”
• Leal Réunion disputes the charges by saying it carried out all possible safety measures and was hampered by limited data access and unclear risk information at the time.
• Paris judges are consolidating related Takata airbag probes over allegations of aggravated deception and endangering lives as legal scrutiny intensifies.
• Since a late June recall, France has grounded 1.7 million vehicles until defective ammonium nitrate-based Takata airbags are replaced after the inflators were linked to at least 60 deaths worldwide, including 18 in France.