NHTSA Audit Query AQ20001

On July 20, 2020, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an Audit Query (AQ) to investigate Harmony Juvenile Products’ (Harmony) reporting of death and injury claims and foreign recalls under 49 CFR Part 579.  NHTSA’s investigation was prompted by a fatal incident involving child restraints manufactured by both Harmony and another manufacturer for which NHTSA received death and injury reports from the involved vehicle manufacturer and the other child restraint manufacturer.  NHTSA did not receive a report from Harmony until after NHTSA contacted the company.  NHTSA was also aware of foreign recalls of Harmony products that NHTSA believed may have been substantially similar to products sold in the United States but were not reported to the Agency. In response to NHTSA’s information request issued during this investigation, Harmony asserted that because of the unique requirements for service of process for foreign entities (Harmony is located in Canada) and the limited information available to the company, Harmony did not have enough information regarding the fatal incident to submit a report to NHTSA under Part 579 until after Harmony was contacted by NHTSA.  Harmony also responded that there were no foreign recalls involving substantially similar products that Harmony did not report to NHTSA. After NHTSA opened this AQ, Harmony improved its processes for compliance with Part 579 by taking the following actions: (1) formalizing its previously unwritten procedures for reviewing communications to help ensure that future communications would be reported to NHTSA pursuant to 49 CFR 579.5; (2) auditing customer contracts to determine whether any may have met the reporting requirements for consumer complaints under 49 CFR 579.25(c); (3) auditing its records to see whether there were analyses of field incidents that meet the definition of a “field report,” which Harmony is required to report to NHTSA; and (4) reviewing charge-back information prov