Detroit, May 3 (Reuters): A Toyota Motor Corp. employee has filed a $190 million lawsuit charging that the auto maker’s top US executive sexually harassed her and other executives failed to act on her complaints.

In the lawsuit filed in New York state court, Sayaka Kobayashi, 42, said Toyota North America chief executive Hideaki Otaka, 65, made repeated sexual advances towards her in 2005 when she was working as his assistant in New York.

“Toyota has a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards sexual harassment at all levels within the company and takes any allegations of this nature very seriously,” Toyota said.

Kobayashi, an employee in the company’s corporate planning unit who was hired in the US in 1997, was asked to become Otaka’s assistant in March 2005, according to the lawsuit.

Over the next few months, Otaka repeatedly asked Kobayashi to accompany him to lunches, walks in Central Park and on business trips, where he tried to engage in sexual conduct with her, according to the lawsuit.