Sony has announced details of the Vaio laptop battery recall it admitted last month it was going to initiate. And Toshiba has indicated it may sue the Japanese giant in order to gain recompense for any damage it alleges may have been done to its brand by its own battery recall.

Sony's Vaio division announced on 29 September it was planning to recall batteries fitted into some of its notebook computers. At the time, it said it was pondering whether it would participate in the broader battery recall programme put in place independently by Sony's battery manufacturing operation.

Sony Japan today asked anyone who owns a VGP-BPS2B or VGP-BPS3A battery pack to return the unit to the company. Some have been sold on their own, others were bundled with a variety of Vaio notebooks. The recall only applies to certain battery-pack serial numbers, Sony said.

Sony Japan said it expects to replace around 90,000 batteries in the Asia Pacific region. Other Sony subsidiaries have yet to announce recalls of their own, but Japanese newspaper the Nihon Keizai Shimbun today put the total at 300,000 Vaio batteries worldwide.

The claim comes a day after Toshiba said it may take Sony to court to seek compensation for the lost business and damage to its brand it alleges it has sustained since it issued an 830,000-unit recall last month. ®

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