Maryland Pension to Represent Shareholder Suit Against Toyota Motor Corp.

(August 11, 2010) — The $31 billion Maryland State Retirement and Pension System has been chosen to represent complaints from investors nationwide who blame Toyota Motor Corp. for their financial losses.

Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, is accused of failing to disclose defects related to sudden acceleration that resulted in the call of 2.3 million vehicles in North America in January.

“The judge found that we were the best fund to operate as the lead plaintiff based on the fact that we had purchased in both those markets,” Campbell Killefer, deputy chief of the civil litigation division in the Maryland attorney general’s office, told The Baltimore Sun. “In the grand scheme of things, the loss is not a material hit to the system, but it’s still a large amount of money and worth fighting over.”

The Maryland public pension alleges an estimated loss of $18 million due to Toyota vehicle recalls. The loss represents the biggest loss of any shareholder that rivaled to be lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp, The Sun reports.

The Maryland pension, which administers retirement and pension benefits for more than 400,000 retirees, beneficiaries and current state employees, had invested in Toyota’s American depositary shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The fund also invested in Toyota common stock on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Killefer told The Sun.

In total, the Japanese carmaker is up against more than 300 federal and state lawsuits over economic losses and claims of personal injuries or deaths caused by vehicle defects.