SEC and Federal Grand Jury Are Investigating Toyota

Feb. 22, 2010 — -- A federal grand jury in New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into sudden acceleration in Toyotas.

The grand jury in the Southern District of New York issued a subpoena on February 8 asking Toyota and its subsidiaries to "produce certain documents related to unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles and the braking system of the Prius."

According to documents filed with the SEC, Toyota also received a voluntary request and a subpoena from the Los Angeles office of the SEC on February 19 asking for production of "certain documents includeing those related to unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles and the company's disclosure policies and practices."

Two Congressional committees will be holding hearings on sudden acceleration in Toyotas this week. "As far as this Committee is concerned," said a spokeperson for Rep. Darrell Issa, R.-Calif., ranking minority member of the House Oversight Committee, " the fact that Toyota is now the subject of a federal and SEC investigation does not in any way change our expectation for what we expect will be transparent and candid testimony from Mr. Toyoda and Mr. Inaba." Toyota executives Akio Toyoda and Yoshi Inaba are expected to testify before the Oversight Committee Wednesday.

If you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide," said the spokesperson, "and there is no reason why Toyota should not be able to provide straight-forward and honest testimony."

Toyota has indicated that it intends to cooperate with the subpoenas.

On Tuesday, Toyota held a webinar for reporters in which it discussed the causes of sudden acceleration in its car, and denied that the electronic throttle played any role in sudden acceleration cases.