Takata Air Bag Lawsuits: Auto Parts Supplier Seeks Injunction

DOVER, DE — Takata is seeking an injunction from a bankruptcy judge in Delaware barring the governments of Hawaii, New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands from prosecuting lawsuits involving the company's lethally defective air bag inflators.

The Japanese auto parts supplier in a complaint filed Thursday also wants to extend the automatic halt of litigation against a company in bankruptcy to hundreds of individual lawsuits against automobile manufacturers who installed the faulty air bags

The judge will hold a status conference on Takata's request Tuesday. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Takata says allowing the lawsuits to proceed would seriously jeopardize its restructuring efforts, including a planned sale of most of its assets to a Chinese-owned rival for $1.6 billion.

Takata was forced into bankruptcy amid lawsuits, multimillion-dollar fines and crushing recall costs involving the air bags.

By Randall Chase, AP Business Writer

Photo credit: Paul Sancya/Associated Press