The United States financial newspaper the Wall Street Journal reports that Japanese car manufacturer Toyota has agreed to pay the US government a record fine of 12.1 million euros for concealing accelerator pedal defects.

Earlier this month, the US Department of Transportation said it was seeking "the maximum civil penalty of 16.375 million dollars against Toyota" after it failed to report its safety defects in a timely manner. The government says Toyota failed to report "the dangerous 'sticky pedal' defect for at least four months, despite knowing of the potential risk to consumers," said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the department's watchdog. Toyota first learned of the problem in September but did not recall any cars until January. About 2.3 million cars in the United States have been recalled for the pedal defect.

As part of the agreement with the US authorities, Toyota has agreed to pay the fine, but did not admit to concealing the safety defects in its cars. The latter is of importance to at least 97 lawsuits seeking damages for injury or death linked to sudden acceleration and 138 class action lawsuits from customers suing to recoup losses in the resale value of Toyota vehicles. A San Diego court recently heard arguments from two dozen attorneys across the United States who want to consolidate the lawsuits into a single multi-billion euro case.