Is Picked to Oversee Takata Restitution - By HIROKO TABUCHIAPRIL 6, 2017 Robert S. Mueller III, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is set to oversee nearly $1 billion that the airbag maker Takata has agreed to pay to victims and automakers affected by its defective airbags. The company also agreed to pay a criminal penalty, set up a compensation fund for victims and pay restitution to automakers caught up in the recall of nearly 70 million airbags in 42 million vehicles in the United States, and millions more overseas. In a notice posted on Thursday, Judge George Caram Steeh of Federal District Court in Detroit said he intended to appoint Mr. Mueller to administer those payments. Under a compensation scheme set up by General Motors, which established a procedure in 2014 to compensate victims of a fatal flaw in an ignition switch, claims were accepted for a limited period through a website and a toll-free number. The defect causes its airbags to rupture violently when triggered, shooting metal shards toward the car’s occupants, and has been linked to at least 11 deaths and more than 180 injuries in the United States. A version of this article appears in print on April 7, 2017, on Page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: Former F. B.I.
