Toyota Motor Corp said on Friday it had settled a sexual harassment lawsuit against the Japanese automaker's former top US executive. The lawsuit had threatened to become a major embarrassment for Toyota at a time when the company's sales have been booming in the United States and it is on the verge of overtaking General Motors Corp as the world's biggest automaker.
Toyota said in a statement that the automaker and the employee who brought the lawsuit against former Toyota North America Chief Executive Hideaki Otaka had agreed to keep terms of the settlement confidential. "We are very pleased to have resolved this matter in a way that all parties have agreed is fair, appropriate, and mutually satisfactory to all concerned," Toyota Motor North America said in a statement.
Sayaka Kobayashi, a Toyota employee, had filed a $190-million lawsuit against the automaker accusing Otaka of sexually harassing her while other Toyota executives failed to act on her complaints.
In the fallout from the lawsuit, Otaka, 65, gave up his position as head of Toyota North America and removed his name for consideration for a position as an auditor at Tokyo affiliate Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd. He has since retired.
Otaka was replaced by Jim Press, the first American president of the Japanese car makers US operating unit. In her lawsuit, filed in New York state court in early May, Kobayashi, an employee in Toyota's corporate planning office, sought $40 million for injury to her career and emotional distress plus $150 million in punitive damages.
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