A Congressional Committee Chairman said in a statement on Friday that “Toyota withheld documents it was legally required to turn over in liability lawsuits the company faced and it paid higher settlements to plaintiffs to avoid revealing information contained in Toyota's secret ‘Books of Knowledge’”.

Toyota Motor Corp., which is facing a staggering number of defections from potential customers and is being grilled by some public officials, is visibly struggling to handle, what is without question, one of the biggest crises in the company's history.

Rep. Edolphus Towns, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement that the documents, which were obtained under subpoena from a former Toyota lawyer-turned-whistleblower, “indicate a systematic disregard for the law and routine violation of court discovery orders in litigation”.

The documents were subpoenaed by the committee from former top Toyota North America lawyer Dimitrios Biller.

Biller represented Toyota from 2003 to 2007, against liability claims of Toyota drivers who were injured in crashes. Biller stated that the documents “showed that Toyota refused to release documents it legally was required to turn over, because they would have allowed the cases against Toyota to go forward”.

Toyota did not respond to a request for comment.