Government

Bryan on 50 Honda Cars and $1 Million: Settlement Will Benefit People of the Virgin Islands; $1 Million to 'Most Likely' be Used for Highway Safety

Governor Albert Bryan said this week that Virgin Islanders who were affected by the 2016 recall of defective Takata airbags and want compensation could file suit against the offending companies themselves. The governor, speaking during the administration's weekly Covid-19 press briefing Monday, was responding to a Consortium query that sought to understand why the administration had settled with Honda for 50 vehicles, including luxurious Acuras, instead of cash, and why the $1 million in cash the government received from Honda as part of the settlement had not been distributed to Virgin Islanders whose vehicles the defective airbags were installed on. In May 2016, then-V.I. Attorney General Claude Walker announced that the widespread Takata airbag recall in the U.S., Japan and other countries, had also hit the USVI, with over 7,000 vehicles affected. Mr. Walker requested that the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands issue a preliminary injunction against Honda and TK Holdings, the par...