(January 9, 2015) TORRANCE, Calif. — Honda has agreed to pay a record $70 million in fines and submit to stricter oversight for failing to tell the U.S. government about warranty claims and more than 1,700 injuries and deaths linked to potential defects in its cars.

Automakers are required to report such information under a 14-year-old U.S. law, and Honda’s violations may have hampered the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s ability to quickly identify vehicle flaws.

“Honda and all of the automakers have a safety responsibility they must live up to — no excuses,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement today. “These fines reflect the tough stance we will take against those who violate the law.”

Rick Schostek, executive vice president, Honda North America , said, "We have resolved this matter and will move forward to build on the important actions Honda has already taken to address our past shortcomings in early warning reporting."

"We continue to fully cooperate with NHTSA to achieve greater transparency and to further enhance our reporting practices."

Honda said that in order to ensure full compliance with its early warning reporting obligations, Honda has already begun taking steps to correct the errors responsible for the violations. The company is in the process of initiating new training regimens, changing internal reporting policy, making staffing and organizational changes, and enhancing oversight of its early warning reporting process.

The settlement agreement follows Honda's Nov. 24 response to a Special Order issued by NHTSA in early November. That order was prompted by Honda's disclosure to NHTSA of preliminary findings from a third-party audit Honda commissioned in September 2014 in response to inadequately addressed discrepancies in the company's early warning reporting.

In responding to the Special Order, as previously disclosed, Honda identified under-reporting of written claims or notices of injuries or deaths over the past decade due to errors related to data entry, computer coding, regulatory interpretation, and other errors in warranty and property damage claims reporting.

The civil penalties include two separate fines of $35 million, each the maximum allowable under U.S. law. One covers Honda’s failure to report 1,729 death and injury claims to NHTSA from 2003 to 2014. The second fine covers lapses on completely reporting warranty claims and repairs offered under “customer satisfaction campaigns.”

The combined penalty exceeds NHTSA’s previous record for a compliance violation by a single company, the $35 million imposed on General Motors in May for mishandling the response to an ignition-switch defect.

Sources: Honda, Bloomberg News