Cost-benefit analysis.
The wrong decision is fixable. Ford did the same with the Pinto US car: they realised that a poor design in the fuel tank would allow rear-end crashes to cause fatal fires. The design fault was easily fixable with an extra protective collar, but the recall would be expensive. Ford calculated that it would be cheaper just to pay out on the lawsuits from victims' families.
When this was revealed, people got so angry at Ford's callous disregard for life that juries started making huge awards (one was $125 million), so Ford's cost-benefit calculation shifted a bit.
If memory is right, it didn't come out until the first trial, though there had been allegedly a lot of stonewalling around disclosure. I beleive the initial punitive damages were well in excess of $125 mln and Ralph Nader was plaintiff counsel. Prompted the book unsafe at any speed - but I could be talking complete ballcocks and that might have been the Corvair.


