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Firestone confirms settlement
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November 8, 2001: 12:28 p.m. ET
Tiremaker confirms it has agreed to pay about $41.5 million to settle claims.
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NEW YORK (CNNmoney) - Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. confirmed Thursday it agreed to pay $41.5 million to settle claims by states over tires the company recalled last year and could pay up to $10 million in previously rejected claims by customers who replaced Firestone tires with competitors' tires.
In the settlement agreement, originally reported Wednesday by the Associated Press, Nashville, Tenn.-based Bridgestone/Firestone will pay $500,000 to each of the 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
The company, a unit of Japan's Bridgestone Corp., will also spend $5 million on a consumer education campaign and $10 million to reimburse the states' attorneys' fees.
"We have been working closely with the state attorneys general on this issue for more than a year now, and believe that these efforts have allowed us to reach an acceptable agreement that permits us to focus our energies and our resources on rebuilding our company and the Firestone brand," CEO John Lampe said.
The company also said it would review previously rejected claims for reimbursement by customers who swapped recalled tires for brands made by Firestone's competitors. The amount Firestone might pay out after reviewing these claims could be up to $10 million, the company said.
In August 2000, Bridgestone/Firestone recalled 6.5 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires after reports that some tires suddenly failed. Since then, federal investigators have documented 271 deaths from thousands of accidents involving the tires, many of which involved the Ford Explorer, the world's best-selling sport/utility vehicle, which used Wilderness AT tires as standard equipment.
Attorneys general have been investigating whether Bridgestone/Firestone and Ford were aware of problems with the tires long before the recall was announced. The settlement heads off lawsuits that could have resulted from the investigation.
In August, Bridgestone/Firestone settled an individual's lawsuit, the first recall-related suit to go to trial, for a reported $7.5 million. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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